Jhin Lemon
Lawful Cute
- Location
- Trapped in the interwebs, please send help
[X] PLAN "We don't have the money"
Fleet Design Quest
- Thread starter 7734
- Start date
- Original Historic
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
with how people keep having the word "plan" in all caps, I keep ending up thinking of the People's Liberation Army Navy whenever I see it like that.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Then come up with a different one without the name "PLAN" in it.
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
[X] PLAN "We don't have the money"
-[] Ships
--[]No Changes
-[] Accounts
--[] No Changes
-[] Construction
--[] Construct an Adria(3rd design) class cruiser.
--[] Order design study for a Battleship. With the current state of our battle line, a single squadron of armored cruisers stands an excellent chance of sinking the lot. This is simply unacceptable.
--[] Once the Sankt Georg finishes, lay down the second Zenta class. We will likely scrap one of our current protected cruisers soon, so we need a replacement.
-[] General Directives
--[] Serious consideration to foreign-built ships until we expand our drydocks, we do not have the ability to build an acceptable battleship hull yet.
AH is... a complete unknown to me.
-[] Ships
--[]No Changes
-[] Accounts
--[] No Changes
-[] Construction
--[] Construct an Adria(3rd design) class cruiser.
--[] Order design study for a Battleship. With the current state of our battle line, a single squadron of armored cruisers stands an excellent chance of sinking the lot. This is simply unacceptable.
--[] Once the Sankt Georg finishes, lay down the second Zenta class. We will likely scrap one of our current protected cruisers soon, so we need a replacement.
-[] General Directives
--[] Serious consideration to foreign-built ships until we expand our drydocks, we do not have the ability to build an acceptable battleship hull yet.
AH is... a complete unknown to me.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
The most likely opponent, and indeed the most desirable opponent for Austria-Hungary, is Italy. The fleet should be built around the need to secure control of the Mediterranean, and as Italy is the peer-power most likely to wind up opposing Austria-Hungary it needs to maintain at least parity with them. It seems the Italians are investing heavily in cruiser warfare and light forces and so the KuK Kriegsmarine should prioritize shoring up it's weaknesses there. The Adria is an excellent armored cruiser, with only one notable weakness in armor; with a little more tonnage to throw on a base of 5" or more belt armor it might even, with superior handling, be a threat to mediocre battleships. And as the Naval Section of the Ministry of War has requested that two more cruisers be built it seems reasonable to take them up on their requirement and lay down an Adria on top of the Saint George class armored cruiser under construction. At some point soon more destroyers and minesweepers will be absolutely critical too.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
At this point I don't think voting leading plan +1 accomplishes anything and it's a bitch to make up a new plan on my phone. Most I'd want to do anyway is add DDs or MS laydowns as the budget permits, anyway. I may make my own if the vote isn't called in the next few hours though but I don't super-care either way.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Eh, plan normally should get called at about 6pm EST, and update out by eight. Besides, I don't think many people here understand how the planning format works yet, and knowing your RtW playthrough you can set out some sensible requirements for future design studies.
- Location
- Reno
[X] Plan: "Ships and Research"
-[] Ships
--[]No Changes
-[] Accounts
--[] Add 1 Million to Research, have them concentrate on Weapons and Engines.
-[] Construction
--[] Construct an Adria(3rd design) class cruiser.
--[] Order design study for a Battleship. With the current state of our battle line, a single squadron of armored cruisers stands an excellent chance of sinking the lot. This is simply unacceptable.
--[] Once the Sankt Georg finishes, lay down the second Zenta class. We will likely scrap one of our current protected cruisers soon, so we need a replacement.
-[] General Directives
--[] Serious consideration to foreign-built ships until we expand our drydocks, we do not have the ability to build an acceptable battleship hull yet.
Mostly the same as the current plan, but we need better guns, and better engines will let us have heavier ships with less loss in speed, or let our current ships just go faster. As the Germans proved in WW2, being able to move fast and hit hard is important. I'm letting Armor be for the moment because apparently our Armor is the only acceptable stat we have for our ships. Next turn we should try and add a drydock or two as well.
-[] Ships
--[]No Changes
-[] Accounts
--[] Add 1 Million to Research, have them concentrate on Weapons and Engines.
-[] Construction
--[] Construct an Adria(3rd design) class cruiser.
--[] Order design study for a Battleship. With the current state of our battle line, a single squadron of armored cruisers stands an excellent chance of sinking the lot. This is simply unacceptable.
--[] Once the Sankt Georg finishes, lay down the second Zenta class. We will likely scrap one of our current protected cruisers soon, so we need a replacement.
-[] General Directives
--[] Serious consideration to foreign-built ships until we expand our drydocks, we do not have the ability to build an acceptable battleship hull yet.
Mostly the same as the current plan, but we need better guns, and better engines will let us have heavier ships with less loss in speed, or let our current ships just go faster. As the Germans proved in WW2, being able to move fast and hit hard is important. I'm letting Armor be for the moment because apparently our Armor is the only acceptable stat we have for our ships. Next turn we should try and add a drydock or two as well.
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- Location
- Reno
Ah, sorry.
... What % would adding a extra Million a turn bring us to?
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
You're already rocking out at a very comfortable 10% of total budget going towards research, which is the simulation system's cap for some reason.
Naval List 1901
- Location
- Southern Virginia
Okay, so a basic strategic primer:
Austria-Hungary has the smallest budget of any of the powers, but has no overseas holdings whatsoever. That means it can concentrate its whole fleet in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately the whole RtW strategic interface is uh... primitive, so the other powers won't actually distract each other or require fleet units be held back to check each other. Britain and France both have enough bases in the Mediterranean to plausibly blockade Austria-Hungary, and blockades are usually the best way to force an end to a war on favorable terms. Italy is also a threat to blockade, but can also be blockaded from the Mediterranean. Winning wars is generally highly positive for development by spurring economic growth, sogoing out and making Italy our prison bitch ahem defeating the perfidious archenemy of the Habsburg Monarchy is a good short-to-medium term goal.
That means staying at least at parity with Italy in battleships and being able to sustain greater "fleet power" in the long run, to stop them from blockading us and to put them under blockade. Since there is basically no call for Austria-Hungary to deploy anything out of the Mediterranean to do this it can afford to cheat a bit by cutting back on deployability and crew comfort. Against other powers it might be useful to have some really cheap long-range cruisers to carry out commerce raiding, since that's the main way to defeat an enemy you can't blockade or force into a decisive battle, but it doesn't really matter this early. Winning Victory Points and Prestige comes from winning battles, and most of those will be actions fought with cruisers or light forces so there's an obvious incentive to be superior there. If you decimate the enemy cruiser force and can maintain parity or even the barest margin of superiority over the enemy battle line, you can win without ever fighting a decisive battle.
But if the game does force you into a decisive battle, or even a battleship engagement, you'd better be ready. There are ways to really cheese combat against the AI, but since I assume @7734 doesn't want me hand-feeding you "how to win forever at RtW" I'll forbear to go into a lot of tactical stuff. Or if I do I'll present the arguments in character and I might bullshit about stuff for the lulz.
Austria-Hungary has the smallest budget of any of the powers, but has no overseas holdings whatsoever. That means it can concentrate its whole fleet in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately the whole RtW strategic interface is uh... primitive, so the other powers won't actually distract each other or require fleet units be held back to check each other. Britain and France both have enough bases in the Mediterranean to plausibly blockade Austria-Hungary, and blockades are usually the best way to force an end to a war on favorable terms. Italy is also a threat to blockade, but can also be blockaded from the Mediterranean. Winning wars is generally highly positive for development by spurring economic growth, so
That means staying at least at parity with Italy in battleships and being able to sustain greater "fleet power" in the long run, to stop them from blockading us and to put them under blockade. Since there is basically no call for Austria-Hungary to deploy anything out of the Mediterranean to do this it can afford to cheat a bit by cutting back on deployability and crew comfort. Against other powers it might be useful to have some really cheap long-range cruisers to carry out commerce raiding, since that's the main way to defeat an enemy you can't blockade or force into a decisive battle, but it doesn't really matter this early. Winning Victory Points and Prestige comes from winning battles, and most of those will be actions fought with cruisers or light forces so there's an obvious incentive to be superior there. If you decimate the enemy cruiser force and can maintain parity or even the barest margin of superiority over the enemy battle line, you can win without ever fighting a decisive battle.
But if the game does force you into a decisive battle, or even a battleship engagement, you'd better be ready. There are ways to really cheese combat against the AI, but since I assume @7734 doesn't want me hand-feeding you "how to win forever at RtW" I'll forbear to go into a lot of tactical stuff. Or if I do I'll present the arguments in character and I might bullshit about stuff for the lulz.
Turn 3
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Salutations, High Admiral! As per tradition for a year of good work, a bottle of champagne has been delivered to your apartments in Vienna for your celebration of the New Year. Not all news can be good, however! The Emperor has decided that in light of the current international situation and dubiousness of certain weapons systems in the fleet, a return to full-caliber gun naval warfare is in order. To that effect, he has ordered us to order you to peruse the development of battleships, the first of which should be done in the next 24 months and a class consisting of three ships to be finished in total not more than 40 months from now in addition to all other priorities. We wish you well in this endeavor, and know that if you can launch at least one of these ships according to schedule then we will handle the worst of the issues.
Good luck, Commander!
KuK Kriegsmarine Headquarters.
Welcome back, High Commander. We've completed the battleship design studies, and they're in your mail as always. Unfortunately, Admiral Istve has come down with a terrible sickness, and may not be available for a few weeks. We will of course keep you and him available on the course of events happening here, but until he returns I'm afraid his flottilla commanders cannot help you as he normally would.
The Intelligence Branch has not detected anything of note lately, however we did have to dispatch a battleship to Liberia in order to rescue some of our people stranded at the embassy there. This may have raised tensions slightly, but this department doubts that.
Rather surprisingly, our technological development teams in Ganz have finally borne fruit. We now have coincidence rangefinders and hydraulic recoil management for all guns now. The ONI still has it's small programs underway, and the budget is in the red until the completion of the second Zenta-class, with us being 82 thousand kreutzer overbudget monthly with 12.8 million kreutzer in the bank. This is perfectly normall, High Admiral- don't be alarmed. You only need to worry about deficets in the budget when we have less than ten million in the bank, or when the deficit is over five hundred thousand kreutzer. Under construction are the second Zenta, and the Adria.
The current force structure is composed of two Budapest and two Monarch class battleships, one Sankt-Georg class and two KuK Maria Theresa class armored cruisers, the protected cruisers Szigetvar, Zenta, and Aspern, and three Leopard class and five Spalato class destroyers.
Admiral Report.
Admiral Haus, Battlefleet Commander
Ah, welcome in. I'll be happy to talk to you about our new battleship designs. The Adria is a fine ship, no? Pitty she's to be wasted on the Scouting Force- with those guns, she could stand head and shoulders above the current battle-line. Naturally, this brings us to the current crop of design proposals.
The first design is a disaster. Nine inch guns, marginal armor, and marginal speed in total. It is an utter embarrassment to the kaiserlich und königlich Kriegsmarine and the designers should be conscripted to the Serbian border, if not shot.
The second design… is poor. We would need to build it in a foreign yard, most likely the English or American, and is still slow and fat. It does however have reasonable armament of 28cm guns, and the 17.6cm battery is a nice touch. Miracle of miracles, it even has enough torpedo-boat guns.
The third design is a middle point of the second and first, and worse in it's own ways for both. 25.4 cm guns for the main battery, and 17.6 on the second battery, which is respectable enough. Still, we cannot build her ourselves and her armor is such that if we must build elsewhere, then we may as build as much as we can.
The last… it is interesting. We can build her ourselves, thankfully, and she has the 28cm main guns paired with a 15.5cm battery. The protection is mediocre, but she can keep up with the fleet and hold her own against torpedo boats so I'm not disinclined to her currently. Frankly, unless something of legends happens, it's the best design we're going to be able to produce considering the state of the yards in Trevisio and Pola. We might need to consider investing in them to get more room to play with at this rate.
Schiftlgranger, Scout Forces
Ah, High Admiral! Construction on my new ships is coming along wonderfully, thank you! As long as this keeps up, we'll thrash the Italians next time they stick their neck in here!
Istven, Light Forces
Apologies. Out sick. Will return eventually. Please do not start war without new destroyers. Regards, R.Adm. Istven
VOTES
[] PLAN NAME
-[] Ships
--[] (Any modifications in a ship class: activating, deactivating, moving to reserve, scrapping.) (One class per line.)
--[] (Any changes of operating theatre) (One class per line)
-[] Accounts
--[] (Any changes to research priorities and budget)
--[] (Any changes to crew training)
--[] (Any changes to espionage. Current valid targets are: Russia, Italy, England, America, Japan, France.)
-[] Construction
--[] (Pause/Resume/Accelerate construction of a ship) (Once class or ship per line)
--[] (Order design study for BB/CA/CL/DD)
--[] (Scrap ship in construction)
-[] General Directives
--[] Write-in Instructions to Headquarters on what should be considered acceptable regarding ship design proposals (ex: minimum speeds, desired armor, desired weapons batteries, etc.)
--[] Write-in (subject to GM Veto)
Current Naval War Office Requests
Have 2 CA or 3 CL under construction or completed: 2/3 or 1/2
Have 3 B under construction or completed: 0/3
Good luck, Commander!
KuK Kriegsmarine Headquarters.
Welcome back, High Commander. We've completed the battleship design studies, and they're in your mail as always. Unfortunately, Admiral Istve has come down with a terrible sickness, and may not be available for a few weeks. We will of course keep you and him available on the course of events happening here, but until he returns I'm afraid his flottilla commanders cannot help you as he normally would.
The Intelligence Branch has not detected anything of note lately, however we did have to dispatch a battleship to Liberia in order to rescue some of our people stranded at the embassy there. This may have raised tensions slightly, but this department doubts that.
Rather surprisingly, our technological development teams in Ganz have finally borne fruit. We now have coincidence rangefinders and hydraulic recoil management for all guns now. The ONI still has it's small programs underway, and the budget is in the red until the completion of the second Zenta-class, with us being 82 thousand kreutzer overbudget monthly with 12.8 million kreutzer in the bank. This is perfectly normall, High Admiral- don't be alarmed. You only need to worry about deficets in the budget when we have less than ten million in the bank, or when the deficit is over five hundred thousand kreutzer. Under construction are the second Zenta, and the Adria.
The current force structure is composed of two Budapest and two Monarch class battleships, one Sankt-Georg class and two KuK Maria Theresa class armored cruisers, the protected cruisers Szigetvar, Zenta, and Aspern, and three Leopard class and five Spalato class destroyers.
Admiral Report.
Admiral Haus, Battlefleet Commander
Ah, welcome in. I'll be happy to talk to you about our new battleship designs. The Adria is a fine ship, no? Pitty she's to be wasted on the Scouting Force- with those guns, she could stand head and shoulders above the current battle-line. Naturally, this brings us to the current crop of design proposals.
The first design is a disaster. Nine inch guns, marginal armor, and marginal speed in total. It is an utter embarrassment to the kaiserlich und königlich Kriegsmarine and the designers should be conscripted to the Serbian border, if not shot.
The second design… is poor. We would need to build it in a foreign yard, most likely the English or American, and is still slow and fat. It does however have reasonable armament of 28cm guns, and the 17.6cm battery is a nice touch. Miracle of miracles, it even has enough torpedo-boat guns.
The third design is a middle point of the second and first, and worse in it's own ways for both. 25.4 cm guns for the main battery, and 17.6 on the second battery, which is respectable enough. Still, we cannot build her ourselves and her armor is such that if we must build elsewhere, then we may as build as much as we can.
The last… it is interesting. We can build her ourselves, thankfully, and she has the 28cm main guns paired with a 15.5cm battery. The protection is mediocre, but she can keep up with the fleet and hold her own against torpedo boats so I'm not disinclined to her currently. Frankly, unless something of legends happens, it's the best design we're going to be able to produce considering the state of the yards in Trevisio and Pola. We might need to consider investing in them to get more room to play with at this rate.
Schiftlgranger, Scout Forces
Ah, High Admiral! Construction on my new ships is coming along wonderfully, thank you! As long as this keeps up, we'll thrash the Italians next time they stick their neck in here!
Istven, Light Forces
Apologies. Out sick. Will return eventually. Please do not start war without new destroyers. Regards, R.Adm. Istven
VOTES
[] PLAN NAME
-[] Ships
--[] (Any modifications in a ship class: activating, deactivating, moving to reserve, scrapping.) (One class per line.)
--[] (Any changes of operating theatre) (One class per line)
-[] Accounts
--[] (Any changes to research priorities and budget)
--[] (Any changes to crew training)
--[] (Any changes to espionage. Current valid targets are: Russia, Italy, England, America, Japan, France.)
-[] Construction
--[] (Pause/Resume/Accelerate construction of a ship) (Once class or ship per line)
--[] (Order design study for BB/CA/CL/DD)
--[] (Scrap ship in construction)
-[] General Directives
--[] Write-in Instructions to Headquarters on what should be considered acceptable regarding ship design proposals (ex: minimum speeds, desired armor, desired weapons batteries, etc.)
--[] Write-in (subject to GM Veto)
Current Naval War Office Requests
Have 2 CA or 3 CL under construction or completed: 2/3 or 1/2
Have 3 B under construction or completed: 0/3
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TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The study designs don't seem to be present, and only the names "design 1|2|3|4" remain.
- Location
- I don't know where I am
But sir, her armor is far inferior to that of a proper battleship. Her speed would be wasted were she tied to the battle line. However, she can use this speed to run down any cruiser currently afloat, and then her superior weaponry to pound them into submission.
A ship with the guns of a battleship but the speed and armor of a cruiser...is this possibly the way forward? Or will this be remembered as a folly?
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
SPEED IS ARMOR
SPEED IS ARMOR
SPEED IS ARMOR
Of course they will, dear boy. Of course they will.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
[X] Investing in capabilities
-[] Ships
--[] Budapest class to reserve once first new battleship finishes construction
-[] Accounts
--[] Invest in dockyards
-[] Construction
--[] Proceed with construction of Design 4
--[] Lay down more DDs as deficit permits
--[] Design study for a new MS
--[] Design study for a new protected cruiser
-[] General Directives
--[] Next protected cruiser class should be designed as a commerce raider emphasizing long range, reliable engines, and above all else cheap cost.
So unfortunately the Adria and a new battleship class are probably going to eat up most of the budget, which means any additional ships need to be cheap as possible. Fortunately it is possible to build really cheap long-range commerce raiders and those are necessary for a war against anyone but Italy. So we might as well look at a run of them while we're trying to build up the capital ship classes. And frankly I don't like constructing ships in foreign docks due to the threat of them being seized, and more importantly just as a roleplay issue- Austria-Hungary built its own ships throughout as an industrial development measure, the Hungarian Diet would be apoplectic at spending money they only grudgingly turned over to the KuK Kriegsmarine outside the country, the foreign ships would have issues with compatibility of armaments since I do not want to bother with certain calibers (coughcough7inchgunscoughcough), etc.
-[] Ships
--[] Budapest class to reserve once first new battleship finishes construction
-[] Accounts
--[] Invest in dockyards
-[] Construction
--[] Proceed with construction of Design 4
--[] Lay down more DDs as deficit permits
--[] Design study for a new MS
--[] Design study for a new protected cruiser
-[] General Directives
--[] Next protected cruiser class should be designed as a commerce raider emphasizing long range, reliable engines, and above all else cheap cost.
So unfortunately the Adria and a new battleship class are probably going to eat up most of the budget, which means any additional ships need to be cheap as possible. Fortunately it is possible to build really cheap long-range commerce raiders and those are necessary for a war against anyone but Italy. So we might as well look at a run of them while we're trying to build up the capital ship classes. And frankly I don't like constructing ships in foreign docks due to the threat of them being seized, and more importantly just as a roleplay issue- Austria-Hungary built its own ships throughout as an industrial development measure, the Hungarian Diet would be apoplectic at spending money they only grudgingly turned over to the KuK Kriegsmarine outside the country, the foreign ships would have issues with compatibility of armaments since I do not want to bother with certain calibers (coughcough7inchgunscoughcough), etc.
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
[X] Investing in capabilities
While I don't like those battleships, it's what we have. Design 4 is the best of the bunch, and my perception is a bit marred by my own concept of early battleships.
What are the penetration ratings for those 11'' guns, and how do they compare to the 10''?
While I don't like those battleships, it's what we have. Design 4 is the best of the bunch, and my perception is a bit marred by my own concept of early battleships.
What are the penetration ratings for those 11'' guns, and how do they compare to the 10''?
- Location
- Southern Virginia
Penetration is going to be bad enough that 8 inches, maybe 9 inches of belt armor is basically more than sufficient to stop almost any shell even at point-blank range until you get a few advances in AP Shells and other developments. The 11" gun is however a major step over the 10" gun in having substantially increased range as well as (relatively useless right now) real plunging fire capabilities. In truth I generally will go with the 9" gun instead of the 10" gun as Austria-Hungary to save money and weight since neither early on has any plunging fire capability, and the 10" gun doesn't have much added penetration or punch at all to justify being a lot heavier. But it is worthwhile going to 11" from 10" guns if you can afford the design.
So how do you kill battleships in the early game? Fire, mostly. Those stately predreadnaughts burn very, very nicely if you pump a lot of HE shells into them. Also maybe some lucky torpedo hits but most often those are going to be used to finish off a ship that's already been crippled by lots of hits. Incidentally, that also means being able to hit enemy ships at all is an important consideration....
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