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RAMJB
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RAMJB last won the day on February 2 2020
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by that standard, neither is any of the (slavist) founding fathers of the USA. So by that standard of "removing stuff that doesn't show the ugly side", and by order of historical events, you should begin by changing your nation capital's name (and a state. And literally thousands of school names) for something else, as is named after a well known historical slave owner yet your federal capital and one of your states doesn't mention that fact about Washington.. Doesn't sound that enticing now, does it?. Of course it doesn't, because there's virtually no historical figure without a side that by today standards would be judged repulsive or at the very least highly questionable. If we were to erase, raze, change the name, and generally delete from existance any memorial, monument, or name honoring a figure of the past that had an "ugly side", then you would end in a nation with no statues nor public monuments at all. Which of course, means a nation without any memory of it's history at all. A terrifying prospect. Selectively purging the memorials belonging to only some of them is a massive double standard and a show of hipocresy of the highest order. You either raze'em all, or raze none of them. The obvious answer is: raze none. Judging the past by the compass of modern morals is downright stupid. Because people of the past were men of their era, and the standards and morals of their eras were different from today's. Most of the giants of humankind we revere from the past were racist, sexist, xenophobes, etc (or a combination of them all) according to modern standards. Yet we (rightly) honor them because of their good deeds, not because of those who were the result of what was normal at their time, but that now we perceive as inadequate or just awfully wrong. Thankfully we've evolved in the sense that nowadays there's a much higher awareness of the freedom of the individual, human rights, equality of sexes, etc. Today's morals are much more evolved (and of course, better) than anytime in the past. Not so thankfully we still haven't learned the value of learning lessons of the past, and properly remembering them without trying to rewrite them to suit our tastes, and not what happened in reality. And by destroying memorials, statues, or changing names of things because "they had an ugly side" then you're erasing the very past you should never forget. My 0.02$.
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Well I don't really count the combined triple expansion/Turbine ships as "combined powerplant" per se, though of course nominally it is. Both are steam powered powerplants in essence, then the actual machinery that converts the steam power into mechanic energy is different, but at the core the principle is the same. Use boilers to create steam, use steam to create power. I mean by that standard even "normal" turbine powerplants would be combined ones ,as some shafts would be ran by high pressure turbines and some others by low pressure ones...yet in the end they're not combined powerplants at all, are they? ;). All the attempts at making a combined steam/diesel powerplant, of which as you mention there were some (though have to admit I had no idea about Chitose having something like that too) were little more than experimental proofs of concept, and they didn't go very well at all. True combined powerplants didn't really become viable until well after WW2 was over, that's the point I'm trying to illustrate here :).
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As Reaper Jack mentioned, the Deutschlands were diesel powered large warships, and actually historically significant enough as to make the inclusion of diesel as an option mandatory (if it was missing there'd be legion of people demanding the option to use diesels ;)). And of course the "H" battleships were never completed but they had been laid down by the beginning of the war, and they were diesel powered too. A significant number of large merchant ships used during WW2 used diesel propulsion aswell. Understandable, as the main advantage of a diesel powerplant was mostly range. In fact that was their main selling point, more than reliability. That the Deutschlands ended up being much more reliable than the Hipper's was more a fault of the heavy cruiser than out of some inherent extraordinary reliability trait of the panzerschiffen. The Hipper class was an engineer nightmare because it's steam propulsion used ultra-high pressure boilers, which were a brand new technology at the time, which of course translated into having serious teething troubles and the inevitable reliability problems associated with all such kind of very new tech in an applied field as warfare. As a result the Hippers had machineries that were a pain in the butt to keep operational, a handful to maintain, and had the nasty habit of breaking down. Same story with the Twins. But a normal, conventional pressure, steam powerplant wasn't any less reliable than diesels might have been. Of course there's also the lots of submarines (some of them truly massive) that used diesel-electric propulsion. Not exactly the same and of course it involves submarines, something this game doesn't make the player design (thankfully), but there's that too.
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The first use of marine gas turbines (and in the meantime combined propulsion) in a proper warship (as opposed to a small canoe) was a 1960s british frigate. that a small Motor Gun Boat did test the propulsion as a proof of concept in the late 1940s changes nothing. Turbinia tested steam turbines in 1895 and nobody will demand steam turbines in the tech trees by that date, because they didn't become a thing for larger ships until 11 years later (and then only because Dreadnought was so rushed). same thing here. Gas turbines might have been present in very small ship testbeds in the late 40s, but they're a post-battleship cold war era propulsion system - out of the historical scope of a game like this. As for the combined diesel propulsion, it was a proposed thing even before WWI. One of the Kaisers was intended to have steam turbines geared to the two external propellers and a diesel linked to the centerline one. Turns out, Germany couldn't produce diesels of the required power, the ship (PrinzRegent Luitpold maybe? can't remember top of my head) ended up commissioned with only two shafts as a result. WW2 projects like H or Yamato might have considered combined propulsions at times during their design procedures. Neither of them reached the final design stage with them. H was to be fully diesel powered, Yamato final design (and as built) was fully steam turbine powered. So, there goes the idea again... There were very good reason why those "combined solutions" didn't happen when they were proposed historically, and that actual combined powerplants in large warships never were a thing until the mid-60s, having them here would make little or no sense as a result. But if you insist on it then sure, include them... But then do so with all the attached downsides that caused those proposals to never actually happen. And then they won't happen here either because nobody will use them...and then what's the point of having them then?. Let the developers focus their efforts on useful things, not on curio stuff that was proposed historically but that never flew because it wasn't really practical at the time.
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Those are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay post-battleship era technologies.
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They're not ships with 500mm of belt armor. They're ships with the equivalent protection level as 500mm of belt armor of the most basic type would provide compared with the (much thinner) actual plate of a much better armor quality you're using. Completely different things, they do make sense, and they're neither unbalanced nor unhistoric. Historically there were huge leaps of protection quality each time a new advance in armor technology was achieved. to put it in perspective: In a period of less than 15 years you went from battleships with 18 inches of belt armor to ships with belts of 12 inches of belt armor, yet actually better protected against penetrations. And that was just the transition to Harvey armor. Then came Krupp-pattern armor plate (which was even stronger) and then the progressive improvements on the basics of the Krupp method, the use of Krupp cemented, different kinds of face hardening, introduction of structural steel armor (this was mostly the US with STS though), etc. But remember that you're seeing -in game- is equivalent armor thickness: it says how thick your armor is calculated on terms of how thick your armor plate is when calculated with the protective capabilities of the basic armor tech. The actual armor thicknesses you're putting on are much thinner. Why does the game do that?. Because it has to do it somehow. 12 inches of harvey armor do not have the same protective capability than 12 inches of Krupp Cemented armor. The game has to handle it somehow, and the way it does it may seem strange, misleading or counterintuitive, but it's neither of them at all once you get wind of what's going on. The armoring system is in need of a rework indeed, but from the aspect of armor layouts and distribution - not from the calculation of thicknesses. And maybe labelling the different post-krupp armor techs as something more than "Krupp I, II, etc", but that one would be for flavor mostly, because on a practical sense, and in that aspect, the system that's in place works well.
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One of the things that was keeping me from making videos of the game was the fix to the excessive speeds (not to mention, at far too early stages) that you saw in the battles. Good news indeed, was really needed ;). The other thing that's keeping me from making videos of the game is that there's no news about an overhaul of the armor layout system that produces ships were, for instance, the "armor belt" of the designer might aswell be swapped by "hull armor", magazines aren't always covered by your thickest armor, and has the effect of making the armored ends of ships so unrealistically armored that they make WarGaming-like "bow in" tactics look like a sensible representation of naval tactics. Not to mention that it ruins the use of AP and force the use of HE when it makes no historical sense at all. Still waiting for some word about that side of the game to come. The current armor system is a gamebreaking feature for me, as much as the unrealistic speeds achievable were. For the record, it's not that I'm not making videos because of a "if you don't introduce this thing I'm talking about, I won't make stuff of it", but because the excessive speeds and the ultra-simplistic armor models make up for...let's say, very unrealistic battles that I had a very hard time making constructive criticism about. There's just so many times you can say "this is because this is early stage, it'll get changed somewhere down the line" without becoming tremendously repetitive , and I only want to showcase the game when what's seen in the videos showcases it very positively for fans of the genre... Because people like me, who have an interest in naval history, when they see a 41knot battlecruiser with a 13 inch armored belt that covers it from waterline to freeboard and laughs at you shooting AP at strong angles, they're going to raise an eyebrow and not feel very interested. And I want people to like what they see so they buy the game ;).
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Circunstancial. Registered and confirmed torpedo hits on Bismarck were three aerial torpedoes from Swordfish planes, and couple from Dorsetshire when she was on her last gasps and sinking. Rodney claimed a torpedo hit on Bismarck, but this was never confirmed and most sources consider it highly unlikely. Now, two of the three aerial torpedo hits did strike Bismarck's TDS and the TDS contained the blasts. Nothing inordinarily unexpected here, Swordfish torpedoes were 18'' units with quite small warheads and extremely limited ability to do much to any modern battleship TDS other than causing flooding on the void spaces of the TDS (and forcing according counterflooding to keep the list neutral). The surprise here would've been that those torpedoes would actually do something to her, given their very limited damaging potential. So that Bismarck's TDS held them is no proof of it being excellent - it's proof that it wasn't desperately flawed. the third swordfish torpedo hit happened on the rudders, well out of the TDS and with well known results. None of it is relevant at the time of discussing Bismarck's TDS system. Now, to Dorsetshire's impacts. Those were straight up 21'' naval torpedoes with quite large warheads and had Bismarck's TDS held against them well, it'd been proof of a good quality TDS indeed. The problem is that those impacts didn't happen on the TDS. By the time they hit the german warship Bismarck was already more than decks awash, she had parts of her deck already submerged as she was listing. There's this famous drawing of the known damage suffered by Bismarck by the time she sank, produced out of eyewitness accounts and the expeditions to her wreck: It's impossible to not notice the gaping holes on her port side more or less at the same placement of her catapult. Reportedly those gaping holes were the result of Dorsetshire's torpedo hits hitting the already underwater deck of the by that time heavily listing ship. Which obviously means those hits didn't happen on the TDS. Which also means Bismarck's TDS couldn't hold their effects, and which means whatever damage those 21'' torpedoes did has nothing to do with how good or bad that TDS was. In pure engineering terms the Bismarck class battleships had exactly the same TDS the Twins had, only as deeper as Bismarck's bigger beam would allow. Of course more depth meant a better TDS but the problem is that the starting point was not a good one. Scharnhorst class' underwater protection system was mediocre at best, as the torpedo and mine impacts the ships of the class suffered proved (acasta's hit caused 2500 tons of flooding on her own hitting straight into said TDS and jammed a turret, as mentioned avobe, but it also destroyed one shaft, threw another one out of line and sent her to the repair dock for six months, just to name one instance - not a good performance by any reasonable measurement). Bismarck had a better (deeper) TDS, but keeping in mind how innefective that layout proved to be on Scharnhorst, I wouldn't hold a candle for it to do THAT much better than Scharnhorst or Gneisenau did when they suffered underwater damage. Better, for sure...but MUCH better, unlikely. And the Twins were quite bad in that regard, as I already mentioned.
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Yet there are multiple instances of big battleships ordering the flooding of their own magazines to cancel out the danger of a magazine going off due to a torpedo impact. One famous instance was Scharnhorst when she was hit by Acasta; the blast not only caused extensive flooding but jammed Caesar and produced a lot of smoke. The crew feared something had caught fire and the order was issued to preventively flood the turret's magazine because of the risk of detonation. Though it was reversed shortly thereafter when it was certified no fire was ongoing. Unlike many opinions seen around here ,a magazine going off due to the damage caused by a torpedo hit was a real threat and possibility, even in big ships with big torpedo defence systems. Was it likely?. On ships with big beams and good enough TDSs it wouldn't be likely, no. Was it possible even then?. Certainly it was. As for cruiser TDSs, some of them had torpedo bulkheads and some sort of layered protection. But even then they were terribly vulnerable - one of the key features of any TDS was depth, and cruisers, being far less beamy than battleships, never had any kind of really effective TDS with enough depth to significantly reduce torpedo damage.
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My 18pdr standard is for for lategame (last couple american independence chapters). By midgame (anytime before that) 12pdrs are plenty powerful to get things done with no big sweat, giving you plenty of time to access Industry 3. I personally never found myself feeling I needed them sooner. As for not standing a chance against a 3rd rate with 12 pdrs alone....even 9pdr desaguliers do a number on them if hitting those things from the rear. Which should be your focus, pin the rate (wishfully pointed upwind) with your biggest strongest frigate firing canister to his decks from his broadside(and have some other ship ready to jump in when it has to pull out, which it probably will at some point), and have another guy parked behind rear ending him 24/7. You can even use the guy "Pinning" it to shoot at it's foremast - if it goes down the rate is going to be like a dead brick on the water. If it doesn't (and with 12pdr you need several hits so a bit of luck), nothing big lost because what's really hurting him is the raking fire that comes from the rear. Big lineship or not, nothing stands well against a sustained barrage of rear end roundshot fire because crew casualties just skyrocket in no time (and then it's time to board). I've had 6th rates doing absolute massacres to those ships using long 9pdr guns. 5th rates with 12pdrs do even better, so obviously do 18pdr when they're available. Incidentally the large range of the long guns is a blessing for that scenario. The longer the range, the more time you can pound dat ass before it moves out of range. I'd rather take the 200 extra yards of the 18pdr range than the hitting power of the 24 pdrs. That's a lot of extra flexibility, a lot of extra ships potentially being in range to pound that ass whenever it's faced their way. I let the razees and lineships do the heavy pounding - the standard frigates I use for flanking, rear ending and long range support, and for that, extra range beats anything else. If your plan to fight the 3rd rate is to assault it from the board at close range then yes, of course, you'll need those congreves. But I strongly object to any battle plan that involves sustained broadside fights with frigates against a 3rd rate. The key to win those engagements is maneouver and pounding him from the ass. And for that you need range.
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1 - No. Usually being upwind is a big bonus. You control the distance of the engagement (enemy can't come upwind for you), you control the moment you want to move in for a boarding (it's really hard to close in with an enemy upwind from you). Add to that that if you're downwind the wind lists your ship away from the enemy, and you're showing a lot more lower hull to the enemy, which if impacted will cause serious flooding once the list recedes. Not sure if this last one is implemented in the game, though. Being downwind has a place - when you're trying to run away from the enemy. Other than that, there's little good in being there. 2 - Depends. If your ships are heavier than the enemy and have stronger guns, it's not a bad thing to do. If not...yeah, well, then it's not a good idea. 3- you're also dealing double damage to him, just more spread. Depends on the scenario you want to put as much focused lead on an enemy ship as you can so going both sides is very inneficient. But there are scenarios where that's not the case, you just want to weaken him enough for a later boarding. Another scenario is an actual boarding, you can do a 2vs1 boarding by going down both the enemy's sides and hook him with both ships simultaneously. And yes, those boardings are VERY nasty for the target ship. 4- No. Just no. If ship rate is superior to your ships first you have to ensure you engage him in a several vs 1 scenario. Then look for his rear like mad and rake the hell out of him as many times as you can. With round shot. Good round shot rakes from a 5th rate can perfectly delete 20-30 sailors from a 3rd rate in a single go. Takes skill and a bit of luck, but after repeated rakes the ship will be ripe for a boarding. Grape is only useful if you're stuck on his side and can't get to the rear. 5- Pretty much. Sail damage is for me a side effect, I never go for it intentionally. If you want to kill the enemy's ability to move, go for his masts. You'll need big enough guns firing round shot and manually target them masts tho. Usually the best one to kill a target's ability to turn is the foremast. If what you want is to slow him down, go for the mainmast. Losing the mizzen hurts speed a bit but is not as big of a deal as losing either of the other two. 6- Rudder damage is 99% of the times the result of a rake. If you're raking the enemy focus on keeping the position so you can keep on doing so. Rudder damage is a side effect. To kill a ship's ability to turn well the best bet is to bring down his foremast, as already said. Turning (specially against the wind) relies a lot on foremast yard movement...lose that mast, lose those yards, the ability to maneouver is seriously impaired. 7- Relying on AI-priorities to gain in-battle advantages can be useful - but is also very risky and adds another layer of complexity to an already complex matter. On top of your own ship sailing, maneouvering, targetting, etc, you'll need to keep awareness of placing ships in the proper spots for the AI to "hook" on a given one, which in most scenarios means putting ships in tactically not that sound positions. Too much of a bother, and too little a return. Better to use proper positioning and maneouver and ignore AI targetting priorities altogether. 8- Carronades are tremendously situational because they're just not flexible enough. If you're not directly on top of the enemy they don't do much. I personally load them on the upper deck of the razees, and on maybe one 5th class I design as a "bulwark" to just go in and smash face close in. But other than that specialist role, I don't use them at all. Range is too much valuable to give up - there's nothing more frustrating than seeing an enemy rate giving you his ass all the time, but you can't capitalize on that because your guns lack the range. 9- Haven't noticed that myself. Then again I move a lot my ships and switch targets a lot as I maneouver, so I'm too busy doing my own stuff as to notice what the AI is doing. But I've never had any special feeling that they tended to "hook up" on a target in particular - except for scenarios where it made sense. So I can't really tell. FInally, I'm seriously slacking on it but I'll eventually make a let's play of this game. Contrary to (I think) most of the population of this game, I don't like land battles of the musket era. I find them boring, repetitive and uninteresting (none of that is fault of the game), but I love the naval part and, well, ships being one of my passions I know what I'm doing. I do explain all I do when I do it, so I guess that might help... Really I should shake off the lazyness and get it done lol.
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It's intentional. Ardent's lower decks don't have the weigh allowance to load standard iron 32pdr guns. Too heavy for the deck. Brass you can (most optimal choice imo), so you can congreves and carronades (both too limited to be the most powerful deck of a 3rd rate). I think that it can load the french guns is an oversight nor a bug - those are heavy as heck and it shouldn't be possible to mount them in there. Keep in mind the Ardent is in there to represent the old 68 gun 3rd rate, which was pretty much rendered obsolete by the brand new 74 gun classes (the ones represented by Bellona). Those older ships usually didn't carry guns that big even in the lower deck.
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Well, yes, they're unlocked through the Industry III tech. But it has nothing to do with the Congreve guns at all, that was my point.
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Upper deck: 6pdr long (Desagulliers). Lower deck: 18pdr Brass (Woolwhich) 6th rates get 9pdr longs. Those gun's penetration is no joke, and the range is very helpful at the time of taking rake shots on bigger ships while keeping a reasonable security range. With second tier of carriages you get more than enough weight for a couple good upgrades (I usually go with copper hull and reload) and a good number on sailors on almost all 5th rates. A handful of those alongside your 6th rates is far more than enough to blast the rear end of that 3rd rate until it's boardable. You don't need congreves. In fact you don't need anything bigger than a 18pdr until you start getting Razeés and SOLs.
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And I'll have to insist that it makes little difference. One year before two fully combat ready german battleships had faced two assaulting british destroyers and took their merry time in sinking them both. In plain daylight and clear skies, and after having hit a carrier from 23km of distance (meaning, they were on top of their game), the encounter took hours before those ships were sunk, and not before some pretty damaging torpedo hits had happened. I don't see why Bismarck would've fared much better alone vs four, be it at day or night. But that's besides the point: DDs weren't easy target for battleships. That's what it all boils down to.