I hate to admit it, given how I love the big battleships, but the grosskreuzer seems to be more what the AH Navy needs: Something cheaper than the schlachtkreuzer that can run away from anything it can't outfight. We have to keep up the battle-line too, but this fits the role we need, particularly if it is used as a colonial patroller or raider during wartime.
I would beg to differ on the matter of cost, it may seem expensive now, but it'll remain relevant up for several decades, which is a lot of mileage. The fact that it'll keep for that amount of time should be more than enough to pay back the initial investment. Moreover with its heavy armor and deadly armament the schlachtkreuzer is equally capable of outfighting anything it can't outrun, with it we can use it as both a raider (with the ability to hunt down enemy battlecruisers no less!) and a ship of the line, making me favor it as the more flexible option.
I could see either the schlachtkreuzers, or the grosskreuzers with saved money spent on beefing up the battleline they'll be less good as supporting. The quads are less of a liability if she's mostly going to be fighting lesser ships, but she's going to be in big trouble if she finds herself under big guns. Presently this isn't a serious problem, as any 30 knot ship has made sacrifices somewhere, but it may limit the class's life span if you're planning to play beyond '25.
I guess I lean towards the schlachtkreuzers, but not particularly decisively.
The naval conference called for by Admiral Haus met over the course of two weeks in Trieste as furious debate followed. The concentrated nature of the Navy allowed nearly every admiral and ship captain to have some input in the core dispute that raged between Haus and his successor Vizadmiral Njegovan. Njegovan's proxy Konteradmiral Miklos Horthy ably rallied the "cruiser block" to overcome the objections of the battleship admirals represented by Konteradmiral Dietmar Vranitzky, and secured a strong majority in favor of building up the neglected cruiser forces. With that decided on the end of the first week, the second week was spent in various seminars and discussions addressing technical matters such as gunnery training, damage control doctrine, and strategic planning against various scenarios and combinations of enemies. The final report was presented to the Emperor at the end of the month; he endorsed the findings and confirmed the promotion of Marinekommandant Haus to the rank of Grand Admiral as the first non-dynast since Wilhelm von Tegetthoff.
No sooner had the conference ended, though, than another scandal rocked the Naval Headquarters. Reports of Italian drafts of a new battleship with quadruple turrets displayed an uncanny resemblance to technical drawings associated with the Petrescu team's battlecruiser design. Though the Italians eschewed the all-forward design further investigation clearly determined the mounts for the proposed turrets were identical to those held at the Seearsenal. A thorough investigation by the Evidenzbureau cleared Petrescu and his team, and found fault with a naval engineer from STT whose cousin worked for Ansaldo. The engineer had already taken up a new position in Naples, evading prosecution or questioning. The affair was leaked to the papers where it caused a rise in tension between Rome and Vienna, which had already increased due to the Balkan War.
The spy scandal led to the withdrawal of the Italian contingent from the International Naval Review held at Trieste in belated honor of the coronation of Franz Ferdinand as King of Hungary. With the French also obviously absent the review was marked with strong British and German contingents, including the presence of First Lord Churchill. Tensions over colonial policy cooled temporarily as a result of the talks between Admiral Haus and his British political counterpart, though it was a short reprieve; both men were soon to leave their positions, and the fundamental divergence in British and Austrian political and strategic interests would continue.
One of the last acts of Admiral Haus prior to his retirement was authorization for the purchase of a new 105mm gun to replace the aging Skoda M92 10.4cm guns widely deployed aboard the destroyers and lighter craft of the Navy. Skoda licensed the Krupp 10.5cm SK L/45 as the 10cm model 20 naval cannon. The new gun boasted superior ballistics as well as improved penetration of light naval armor and would gradually replace the old M92 on the Leopard and Turul classes as vessels were reconditioned for further service.
On 31 March 1920, Admiral Anton Haus formally retired from the KuK Kriegsmarine. He was celebrated as the most successful admiral in the Habsburg Navy since Tegethoff. His successor as Marinekommandant was Vizadmiral Maximilian Njegovan, formerly commander of the Scouting Group. In a break with recent practice he was not named Chief of the Marinesektion for the KuK War Ministry; that position was granted by the Emperor to Franz von Keil, a retired officer who had represented the Navy in his military chancery while still heir to the Empire.
Improvements in ship design and drafting were noted by the introduction of higher level mathematic courses at the University of Vienna for junior engineers employed at the Seearsenal. The observations led to further efforts to insure ongoing and continuing education and contacts with higher academia.
Njegovan had also taken the problem of poor signaling in hand almost from the day of his appointment as Marinekommandant. As an old cruiser commander he was well aware of that even the best scout was useless if its reports failed to reach the admiral. Accordingly he sponsored a reform of signaling procedures, introducing a new set of flag-handling procedures and overhauling the protocols for radioing sightings to the flagship.
Another improved naval rifle was made available later in the year; the 33.5cm Kanone model 20 was intended as an option for future battlecruisers, building on the success of the Graz class. A redesign of the gun's bore and manufacturing processes incorporating new alloys produced a higher velocity weapon. The 33.5cm M20 had markedly superior penetration to the old 35cm gun purchased from the Americans and used to arm the Tegetthoff class, while still weighing substantially less.
In accordance with decisions made earlier in the year, four new light cruisers were ordered from STT and Danubius. They were, in theory, replacements for the old Szigetvar class ships and retained the 12cm armament of the older vessels albeit with a much improved gun. The Achilles class was designed as second-line cruisers, with patrol roles in the Mediterranean and the colonies and a comparatively low cost of around 25 million kroner in mind.
In order to fulfill their half of the order Danubius expanded a destroyer slip to accommodate the new cruiser.
The murder of the Austrian military attaché in Belgrade by a Black Hand assassin on 3 September sparked another round of Balkan crisis. The Serbian authorities reacted cautiously in the investigation, hesitant to tip over the delicate political balance within their newly expanded kingdom. The delay allowed the escape of the assassin to France and obscurity among the large expatriate Serbian community in the Republic. Chancellor Ottokar Czernin and the Chief of the General Staff, Moritz von Auffenberg, favored a hard line and an armed demonstration against Belgrade if the Serbian government refused Austrian demands to end the affair. Ultimately the Serbs paid an indemnity for the murder and made a humiliating apology as both France and Russia proved unable to intervene to offer more support. The humiliation in turn led to further bloodletting between the Black Hand terrorist and White Hand monarchist paramilitaries, leaving Serbia in a temporary state of chaos.
Consultations with the mathematics department at the University of Vienna prompted by engineering officers sent from Trieste for continuing education produced a more efficient method of calculating effective thickness of plate. As a consequence inclining and angling armor more aggressively marked design studies carried out afterward.
Skoda's new 57mm cannon debuted to meet a demand in the riverine fleet for a new 6lb gun to replace various older models of light cannon. The cost of refurbishing the Danube monitors was paid in part by the Army, which expected the vessels to play a key role in future fighting in the Balkans. The Army feared a Serbian and Romanian alliance with Russia in the event of a future war and was already preparing accordingly. The versatile M20 6cm would later be mounted on a light carriage as an infantry support gun and serve as the basis for high velocity anti-panzer cannons.
When the Anglo-Austrian alliance came up for renewal in late 1920 the new Conservative government of Andrew Bonnar-Law declined to renegotiate. Austrian and British strategic interests had continued to diverge, and Bonar-Law's efforts to roll back Home Rule for Ireland assumed a strongly anti-Catholic tone offensive to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With Italy and France weak and friendly relations with Germany maintained the Ballplatz faced the end of the alliance with equanimity. Czernin and the Foreign Ministry considered that the most likely future war would be with Russia, as tensions mounted in the Balkans. In such a case a defensive treaty with Germany would be more valuable, even if it led to a further deterioration of relations with Britain. Marinekommandant Njegovan was less assertive than Montecuccoli or Haus with the civilian government and so acquiesced despite the reservations of the Navy about the potential of alliance with Germany to involve the Empire into a broader war.
Certain joint Austrian-British interests remained and continued to provide some degree of mutual cooperation. OTO Vickers, the Italian shipbuilding company owned by British-based Vickers and in which STT held a large stake, was continuing to operate and turning over a substantial profit. The selection of the company to bid for a new cruiser contract with the Italian government offered the assurances that state of affairs would continue, but inevitably involved the transfer of Austrian and British design know-how into Italian naval engineering circles.
And as 1920 came to a close the import of larger Swiss optical lenses was authorized for the capital ships still under construction. Austrian industry needed the imports as a temporary measure to speed up production of the latest, wider aperture rangefinders while the optics industry adjusted to the new demand. Examples from Swiss industry were also needed to insure that the Austro-Hungarian producers could meet the level of quality required from their contracts.
You have to respect a person who can get a paragraph of coherent story out of a 2-in. gun upgrade, thereby quite possibly giving it more meaning than all the 2-in. gun upgrades in all the actual games played of RTW since RTW's release.
(Seriously, does anybody use the things for anything?)
You have to respect a person who can get a paragraph of coherent story out of a 2-in. gun upgrade, thereby quite possibly giving it more meaning than all the 2-in. gun upgrades in all the actual games played of RTW since RTW's release.
(Seriously, does anybody use the things for anything?)
You have to respect a person who can get a paragraph of coherent story out of a 2-in. gun upgrade, thereby quite possibly giving it more meaning than all the 2-in. gun upgrades in all the actual games played of RTW since RTW's release.
(Seriously, does anybody use the things for anything?)
Same. Though, depending on how the system decides to give you new guns, this may improve his chances of getting something useful in the future. For example if it first rolls for whether you get a gun this month, and then makes a second roll for which gun it is, then it would. OTOH, if it makes a monthly roll for each possible new gun individually, then it won't.
The 2" gun is literally the worst. It's range is so short that you have to get within suicide range where every other kind of gun even with the worst fire control can hit, it doesn't have a rof advantage over the 3" gun due to the way rounds fired in a turn are calculated, it does fuck all damage against anything larger than a 200t minesweeper, and it's not even much lighter than the 3"er
Which is kinda what those guns were in reality, lol. But it is cool to see it as a anti-armor gun here haha.
Also @Cavalier the newest RtW update added MTB squadrons as buildable fortifications, if you haven't found out already. They act kinda like support forces in that they'll patrol ports autonomously. Not sure if you can do anything with them yet since they aren't cost effective, but they could add a bit of flavor I guess
The beginning of 1921 was marked by continued political tensions as the newly established Reichsrat sorted out political coalitions and interests. The Social Democrats and Christian Socialists enjoyed the advantage of at least theoretically pan-Imperial ideologies as well as support from the politically and economically sophisticated German population. A solid block of Polish deputies remained from long-practice and exercised influence all out of proportion to their numbers by dint of their parliamentary discipline and cohesion. Magyar elites cobbled together a united national-liberal party led by Premier Andrassy, combining the old Liberal and Independence parties, but faced stiff competition from the newly empowered Hungarian Social Democratic Party (distinct from the Social Democratic Party of Austria-Hungary of the Germans) as well as a Magyar branch of the Christian Socialist Party. Finally the various Slavic and Romanian parties existed in national-liberal, clerical, socialist, and nationalist versions.
Chancellor Ottokar Czernin was hard-pressed to cobble together a majority to support a program of action and had relied on ad-hoc coalitions to pass last year's budget. Under pressure from the Emperor he began negotiating with the Christian Socialists, Andrassy's National Liberal Party, the Polish block, and conservative and clerical parties among the Czechs, Slovaks, and Croats to put the government on a more formal footing. The pro-Russian orientation of the leading Czech parties quickly forced him to look to Ukrainian and Romanian delegates instead, complicating negotiations with the Poles and the Magyars. Until a solid majority could be established he continued to govern with the tolerance of the Social Democrats and so remained beholden to them on domestic policy, much to the dismay of the Emperor and the military.
Unsatisfactory political conditions aside, the Navy continued to build upon the lessons of the last war and its own development and trials. The Seearsenal carried out a series of tests with the new Skoda M.20 33cm gun, sacrificing the obsolete Radetzky class battleships as target ships. Tests showed that 11" belt armor remained largely effective when targeted in imperfect conditions and struck at angles resembling actual combat hits, despite on-shore development of AP shells. The tests also confirmed that hits at ranges exceeding 20000 yards were not only possible but increasingly likely with the latest director-fire systems. One product of the tests was the development of heavier AP shells, to take advantage of the potential for plunging fire from above to bypass the heavier belts appearing on foreign battleships.
The Finance Ministry continued to pledge investment in Guangzhouwan, negotiating a railroad concession to Canton from the Republic of China authorities. Facilities at Fort Bayard were further expanded as well to provide berths for the colonial cruiser squadron expected to be posted to the colony to protect Austrian interests in Asia.
Orders for four more submarines were placed in January, split between STT and Danubius as per existing policy. Building a new group of submarines offered the opportunity to apply advances in battery design and other incremental improvements to a sub-class of the existing boats.
And as March approached, the Empire's political situation stabilized. Czernin convinced the Christian Socialists to drop lingering anti-Slavic convictions to form a broader electoral alliance with the Czech, Slovak, and Croatian clericalist parties. The Christian Socialist block (minus the Magyar party), together with the Poles and Romanians standing outside the electoral arrangement as well as the conditional support of Andrassy's Magyar National Liberals, could command a solid majority in the Reichsrat. The restoration of parliamentary order in the legislature allowed for the ordinary passage of bills and gradually stabilized the political situation in the Empire.
Further analysis of gunnery trials using the Radetzky class determined there was a still unacceptably high level of wastage from shells failing to properly detonate. A solution to the problem presented itself in March with the importation of new proximity fuzes manufactured by the Siemens-Shuckert conglomerate in Germany. Testing of shells from Skoda equipped with the new German fuzes showed a marked increase in reliable detonation after armor penetration in testing at Pola.
May 1920 saw the appointment of an Evidenzbureau source to the Naval Ministry and a subsequent influx of highly valuable intelligence about developments in the Regia Marina. One of the most important files provided to the Kriegsmarine concerned the Naval General Staff's plans to counter the growing Austro-Hungarian submarine threat by organizing convoys of merchant ships. Knowing the routes and tactics planned by the Italians for the next war was obviously useful, and the information encouraged the Marinesektion to follow suite in planning the organization of convoy routes as a precaution.
The presence of the Austrian agent may also have swung the Italian government to authorize the sale of an improved compressed air cylinder by Ansaldo to STT for a new export submarine.
But the greatest intelligence coup of the year came in July, when the compromised Italian officer handed over plans for the new large battlecruiser RM Marco Polo to his handlers. The specifications were cause for a major re-evaluation of the direction of battlecruiser design in the Kriegsmarine.
Admiral Njegovan was impressed by the superiority of the Italian ships over the Graz class battlecruisers. The RM Marco Polo and any sister-ships represented a huge threat to the Austro-Hungarian Scouting Group due to superior speed, armor, and weight of fire. In many respects the design was for a very fast battleship and was limited only by the inability of the Italians to procure more powerful naval cannons. His own preferred 30 knot schlachtkreuzer design could outrun the Italian vessel handily, but would be hard pressed to overpower it in a fleet action. The arrangement of the armor also clearly showed the Italians were aware of the increasing threat of plunging fire, quite probably from their own sources within the Kriegsmarine. As such any future Austrian schlachtkreuzer would need to either increase the number of guns or upgrade to a 38cm rifle, or even a 40cm rifle, to be competitive. And that was not viable while also maintaining the demand for 30 knots of speed and adequate armor to survive being shelled from an enemy line of battle.
Compromises would have to be made but it was not yet clear what those compromises would be.
At least, as of August, there were 16" naval cannons available. Skoda had responded to the demand for a heavier naval rifle for the follow-on to the Tegetthoff class battleship with the 40cm M.21 naval cannon. Roughly equivalent to the Royal Navy's model, the M.21was distinguished by a marginally smaller bore of 400mm but with higher shell velocity.
Another important development came with the Petrescu team's revision of their battlecruiser proposal. The design now made use of above-deck torpedo launchers to augment its capability at closer quarters and discourage pursuit by lighter forces. This was the first instance of a team making use of an alternative to the underwater tubes on a capital ship.
Intelligence reports in September suggested the Russian battlecruiser Navarin would be similar to the Italian RM Marco Polo, with a 26 knot design speed and 12 inches of belt armor. The Russians were known to have deployed a 13" gun on their latest battleship design and it was assumed by the Kriegsmarine that their battlecruisers would use it as well.
And as winter approached the Balkans were the site of yet another major military and political crisis. The outcome of the Balkan War had been favorable to Serbia, though not by so much as it had hoped. Bulgaria had wound up with Macedonia and the Great Powers had upheld Albanian independence; to make matters worse Russia had begun a policy of rapprochement with Bulgaria at the expense of Serbia, as the larger and more stable Bulgarian state was clearly a better ally against the Ottomans. Romania had designs on both Russian and Bulgarian territory as well as Austrian Transylvania, and so was considered unreliable by St. Petersburg. The defeated Ottomans were also stewing in defeat after a prolonged and creditable defense against Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece and eager for revenge.
Italy was keen to step into the vacuum, despite having fomented the first Balkan War. Prime Minister Antonio Salandra reversed Italian diplomacy, and approached the Serbians and Ottomans in secret talks for an alliance. Italy would support their ambitions against Bulgaria if both agreed to an Italian protectorate over Albania. The increasingly ambitious government in Belgrade was reluctant to give up the potential of an Adriatic port, but Salandra held out the further possibility of the Greek port of Salonika for Serbia or, alternatively, Cattaro after a war with Austria-Hungary. The Italians were also secretly promising the Turks the return of Eastern Rumelia and Thrace in the event of war with Greece, also including Salonika. The Italians also sought closer ties to Bucharest on the basis of their "common Latin origins" and in the event of further war with Bulgaria or Austria.
The web of Italian plotting was not particularly subtle and the Ballplatz had already suspected their Roman counterparts of meddling when Black Hand spies were shot along the Macedonian border by Bulgarian paramilitaries on the night of 4 November. The incident was allegedly precipitated by the Serbians firing on a Bulgarian shepherd's dog, mistaken in the night for a wolf. While battles between infiltrating terrorists and defending militia had been common before, the weak Serbian government took an unaccountably hard stance on the issue. Two weeks in, both Serbia and Bulgaria were mobilizing for war and the Austrian minister in Bucharest was reporting that Romania was strongly considering war with Bulgaria as well. The Italian pledge of support to Serbia soon became common knowledge among the diplomatic circles in Belgrade; the Serbian government was clinging to the idea of a victorious war with Bulgaria as a means to stabilize the disastrous civil conflicts still raging at home.
Emperor Franz Ferdinand openly blamed Italian meddling for the conflict and directly warned his counterpart King Victor Emmanuele against involvement. The missive made rather blatant references to Italian defeat in the previous war and was interpreted by the Italian government as an ultimatum. Salandra leaked the telegraph to the Italian press to whip up nationalist support for his government and to portray any conflict as purely defensive on Rome's part. Chancellor Czernin and his new Foreign Minister, Albert von Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, denied that interpretation of the letter but cautioned Italy against involvement in the brewing war. Despite that restraint tension between Rome and Vienna reached a new palpable height going into 1922.
Even as war between Italy and Austria-Hungary was speculated about in the press, the Evidenzbureau's agent in the Italian Naval Ministry passed on further information about Italy's war plans. A memo on ASW tactics provided details of an improved depth-charge rack recently deployed by Italian escort craft. Within months a similar rack would be deployed aboard Austrian vessels as well.
Given the increase in tension it was of some relief to Marinekommandant Njegovan that the cruisers of the Achilles class were ready for commissioning by the end of the year. SMS Odysseus was the first of the new vessels to enter Kriegsmarine service; she and her three sister-ships greatly improved the capability of the Kriegsmarine to patrol the Mediterranean and Austrian colonial zones against an anticipated raiding campaign.
With the focus on intensive spying and the later diplomatic efforts, it seems like you're deliberately trying to push tensions high with Italy, perhaps to head off potential conflicts with Britain? (Though at this rate, it looks like Austria-Hungary may end up in a two-front war against the Russo-Italian Axis.)
With the focus on intensive spying and the later diplomatic efforts, it seems like you're deliberately trying to push tensions high with Italy, perhaps to head off potential conflicts with Britain? (Though at this rate, it looks like Austria-Hungary may end up in a two-front war against the Russo-Italian Axis.)
With the end of the British alliance relations with Germany had improved. Early 1922 saw a continuance of technology transfers and economic agreements between the two Empires, tying their industrial and military sectors closer still.
Developments in the mathematical field of fluid dynamics at the University of Vienna filtered into the KuK Kriegsmarine in the form of an improved design for hydrostatic pistols. The new triggering devices were vital to a more effective depth charge, allowing for much greater accuracy and reliability in setting off the explosive filling at the selected depth. This greatly reduced the incidents of fratricide in ASW exercises, where one charge prematurely detonating would take out a number of other charges in the same barrage.
April saw the impending completion of the final units of the Tegetthoff and Lissa class ships and the opportunity to order new capital ships from STT and Danubius. Marinekommandant Njegovan reluctantly conceded the need to counter the Italian Marco Polo and Russian Navarin class battlecruisers with a new battlecruiser boasting the largest available naval rifles. The two ordered ships would replace the survivors of the Maria-Theresia class armored cruisers, which were judged to be too vulnerable to large modern cruisers and too slow to escape them. They would not reach the desired 30 knot design speed, but their balance of firepower and armor with a design speed of 28 knots made for vessels that could effectively scout and overpower an enemy screen as well as engage enemy battleships. In that sense they truly were the culmination of the design philosophy represented by the SMS Kaiserin und Königen Maria Theresia two decades previously.
A brief controversy occurred in May as Skoda openly accused the United States Navy of diverting technical data gleaned from the entry of their 20.3cm gun in a bidding solicitation to Bethlehem Steel. A lawsuit wound its way through the American court system over the next decade, though the accusations were soon overshadowed by developments in the Balkans.
Skoda had lost the American contract, but secured a lucrative deal with the Ottoman Empire to provide heavy howitzers, mortars, and field artillery to equip a rebuilding Turkish Army. The Ottomans were also looking at airplanes from the Lohner-Porsche Phönixwerke and had placed orders for artillery tractors from Austro-Daimler to motorize the howitzers. Proceeds from the newly exploited Mosul oil fields were being diverted to finish the Istanbul-Baghdad Railroad but the Ottoman Navy was also expected to order a pair of battlecruisers by 1924, which would completely destroy even the semblance of a naval balance in the Aegean. While the deals were excellent news for Skoda and other Austrian industries and STT schemed to present versions of the Ersatz-Kaiserin ships for Ottoman consideration, they inevitably led to a deterioration of relations with Italy and Russia.
The Russians were naturally concerned at the arming of the Turks, which threatened the ability of their new Bulgarian proteges to impose their will on the Balkans. The battlecruisers would be even more of a problem as the Greeks could not possibly counter such a force (and indeed were hard-pressed to deal with the two existing Ottoman battleships). Sufficiently powerful foreign-built battlecruisers could even threaten Russian control of the Black Sea and so represented a direct threat to the Empire. The Italians meanwhile were infuriated to see their carefully built influence among the anti-Bulgarian axis of Serbia, Romania, and Turkey threatened by Austrian commercial penetration of the region.
Austrian commercial success was not an isolated incident, but represented a trend of increasing relevance as an industrial as well as political and military power. The civil war had broken the political power of the minor Hungarian magnates, opening up the whole of the Hungarian half of the monarchy to further development. Agricultural practices were modernized in line with the highly productive commercial estates in Galicia, greatly boosting grain production and animal husbandry. The increased supply held off inflation of food prices inside the monarchy while providing valuable exports, especially to the German Reich, which provided capital for industrialization. As the Magyar countryside became more efficient and productive surplus labor was fed into the new industrial zones of Budapest, Szekesferhervar, Temesvar, Clausen, Eszetergozm, and above all the new Slovak national capital of Pressburg. The Hungarian boom was matched by development in Croatia, where the fortune of the Danubius shipyards had been replicated by a number of commercial yards in Illyria which could boast greater productivity than Italian shipyards while still undercutting Italian workers on labor costs.
The visit of the MN Suffren to Trieste in July, ostensibly the first friendly contact between the Kriegsmarine and the Marine Nationale since the end of the war, turned into a shambles. A party of drunken French sailors was caught up in a demonstration between local Slovenes and Italians and pummeled by both sides. Contacts between French and Austrian officers were grudging at best, with none of the usual pleasantries and conviviality. Admiral Njegovan made things worse by contemptuously comparing the older French cruiser, which had enjoyed substantial success as a raider in the Mediterranean during the last war, with the new Achilles class patrol cruisers of the Kriegsmarine. When the ship finally left port after a week of layover relations between the two navies had actually gotten worse than before the visit.
Interest in foreign sales led Skoda to look at and update its 24cm naval rifle. A tractor-mobile heavy howitzer gun had been sold to the Turks and a (somewhat) mobile coastal artillery version was needed for a Swedish bid. The old gun had compared favorably with available 10" models from the British and French in any case, but the updated 24cm KK M22 was altogether superior to any alternatives. The Swedes settled on the guns fairly quickly, attracted by the high degree of accuracy displayed in testing in the inlets and fjords of Dalmatia. Skoda held open the option of mounting the guns on a Coastal Defense Ship or a cruiser for Sweden and Siam or the Republic of China, in cooperation with STT or native shipbuilders. None of the targeted powers jumped at the offer, though the Swedish Navy expressed some interest in license-production for an eventual CDS.
Design studies for a successor to the Turul class destroyer diverged from an enlarged version of the destroyer into an entirely new ship with Revision III. The employment of twin mounts for the excellent Skoda 10.4cm naval rifle, mounted fore and aft with superfiring turrets, allowed for an unprecedented eight naval guns to be mounted on a 1500 ton ship with a design speed of 33knots. The larger beam of the design also allowed for the employment of two centerline quadruple torpedo launchers. Revision III would become the standard for all future Austrian destroyers.
The discovery of a large oil field in Eritrea in late 1922 represented a potential miracle for the ailing Kingdom of Italy. The Italian economy had suffered rough times since the end of the war with Austria and Britain; the blockade had killed off entire sectors of industry while sharpening worker-employer antagonisms. The government of Filippo Turati had introduced progressive legislation that had alienated the industrialists while undermining Italy's main competitive advantage of cheap labor. Turati's social and educational reforms might have made up the difference by boosting Italian worker productivity, but they were swiftly defunded one Turati was replaced by the perennial survivor Giovanni Giolitti in 1914. The ascent of Antonio Salandra in the 1919 elections was backed by the Fasci di Combattore organized by Gabriele d'Annunzio, General Emilio de Bono, Cesare de Vecchi, and Italo Balbo and led to further social retrenchment.
Oil offered the potential to provide a new source of revenue and foreign capital with which to further the grandiose development and industrialization plans pushed on Salandra by the Fasci. More practically the revenues could fund the growth of a fleet to rival France and Austria-Hungary, so that Italy could once again contend for control of the Mediterranean. The dreams of empire were stoked by black gold and the gradual recovery of the Irredentist block represented by the Fasci, encouraging the aggressive moves of the Italians in the Balkans.
However, the site of the oil field overlapped the border with Austrian Somaliland. The frontier had remained relatively permeable for pastoral tribespeople nominally separated into Italian and Austrian jurisdiction. The vital Kriegsmarine naval base to Djibouti insured the presence of a large garrison of the KuK Armee while the Italians had built a very large colonial army to police Eritrea and for support in their Ethiopian campaigns. An influx of Italian troops to the border to protect the engineers and laborers responsible for developing the field was matched by the deployment of Austrian troops to guard against Italian frontier violations. With nomadic herdsmen and smugglers operating across the invisible line separating the two forces it would only be a matter of time before border incidents started. With Italian nationalism on the resurgence and the two states already clashing over Balkan influence the risk of war was significantly increased.
Nor would the Italians solely be to blame. The Colonial Bureau of the Finance Ministry had long advocated for the purchase or seizure of Italian Somaliland and Eritrea to form an Austrian East Africa block. The poverty of the region had generally limited interest in the scheme to the Navy League and a few merchants with economic interests in the area. Oil changed the dynamics and soon enough the Ballplatz and the War Ministry had both decided that seizing Eritrea would be a major objective in any future war with Italy.
As the situation in Eritrea developed, reports from the Evidenzbureau's agent in the Italian Naval Ministry pointed to preparations for war. Admiral Njegovan was alarmed by the expenditure figures of the Regia Marina for target practice. In the previous war Austrian warships had enjoyed a significant advantage in gunnery. That was still expected to be the case thanks to the latest versions of the Argo mechanical fire control computer; but rigorous drilling, not something the Italian Navy had been previously known for, could offset that advantage to a significant degree. An increase in the naval budget reported in December confirmed to him that the Italians intended to continue preparing seriously for a fleet contest and in turn led him to start putting the Kriegsmarine on a war footing.
The announcement that the British had begun offering an 18" gun for use was an unwelcome escalation in naval firepower but barely registered for the Marinesektion in light of the perceived immanent war with Rome.
At least one advantage the Austro-Hungarian Navy could count on remained the field of fire direction, which was underscored by the purchase of the Kerberos Fire Control System from Pollen's Argo Gesellschaft to coordinate secondary batteries.
It was, from the perspective of the Navy, a terrible time for a major political dispute in the Reichsrat. The August 1922 elections had favored the Social Democrats and their ethnic counterparts, and forced Czernin to juggle his parliamentary alliances accordingly. The Social Democrats, led by Adler and Renner, demanded a decrease in the military budget to fund the expansion of old-age pension insurance to cover workers in Hungary and various other labor-friendly social reforms. Czernin was skeptical but prepared to accommodate the Socialists if they could find a majority in the Reichsrat. The Christian Socialists were split over the measure, since they favored the reforms but were seriously concerned about Russian and Italian belligerence. The balance of power rested in the various third parties, ranging from the obstructionist Czech National Socialists to the sympathetic Croatian Peasant's Party.
Admiral Njegovan, Chief of Staff Moritz von Auffenberg, and War Minister Aarenau met to discuss the matter at the Hofburg on 3 December ahead of an audience with the Emperor. Njegovan and Auffenberg were united in rejecting the cuts due to the signs of impending war with Italy, though Aarenau was worried about the prospect of social upheaval if the expansion of the welfare state were rejected. In the end they reached agreement to support the plan only if Czernin could deliver an agreement with Britain or Germany on an alliance or if tensions with Russia and Italy could be eased. The Emperor accepted the agreement and ordered his Chancellor to start diplomatic talks; under the advice of Foreign Minister Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein he focused efforts on the Italians as the most urgent problem, and invited the Italian ambassador to discuss the situation.
Njegovan had other ideas, and stopped by Agram to lobby the Croatian parties against the proposed reform package. He expressed confidential concerns about an Italian naval buildup and leaked exaggerated details of Italian border violations in Somaliland to alarm the Illyrian deputies. Accordingly the Croatian governing coalition had its Reichsrat deputies vigorously oppose the budget cuts, and traded favors with the Christian Socialists and secure the opposition of several more deputies. The motion failed in the Reichsrat by 34 votes, setting off labor disturbances in Budapest and Pressburg that had to be suppressed by martial law. Significant socialist demonstrations in Austria and Bohemia followed; though the ties between the Croatians and the Christian Socialists were improved soon saw the formation of a new majority coalition centered on the priest and Christian Socialist leader Ignaz Seipel.
In light of events next year Njegovan's political intervention would look more justified than opportunistic, though in the short term they caused a breach in his relationship with the War Minister.
1922
In light of events next year Njegovan's political intervention would look more justified than opportunistic, though in the short term they caused a breach in his relationship with the War Minister.
Austria has a stronger Navy and in the last war gained the high ground in the Alps, thier army is also much better led and Armed, if they don't crush the spaghetti's I don't know how Logic will continue to be a word
I do have quite a bit of work to explain how the Italians could even think of engaging in another war and have a hope of success. Though the Italian BCs range from a 32 knot, six 13" gun broadside cruiser with cruiser armor up to the RM Marco Polo as a heavily armored (by AI standards) fast battleship. My old Graz class ships are too slow and the Lissa class isn't heavily armed or armored enough for either to provide ready counters. In theory Italy could wage a guerre du course and use Fascist mass mobilization of the population to overwhelm the Austrian armies in the Alps.
Of course once my 16" gunned Fast Battleships are finished it would be game over for the Regia Marina. And the eleven battles of the Isonzo suggest how trying to use numbers to overwhelm a good defensive position with sheer mass would go.
Of course once my 16" gunned Fast Battleships are finished it would be game over for the Regia Marina. And the eleven battles of the Isonzo suggest how trying to use numbers to overwhelm a good defensive position with sheer mass would go.
I do have quite a bit of work to explain how the Italians could even think of engaging in another war and have a hope of success. Though the Italian BCs range from a 32 knot, six 13" gun broadside cruiser with cruiser armor up to the RM Marco Polo as a heavily armored (by AI standards) fast battleship. My old Graz class ships are too slow and the Lissa class isn't heavily armed or armored enough for either to provide ready counters. In theory Italy could wage a guerre du course and use Fascist mass mobilization of the population to overwhelm the Austrian armies in the Alps.
Of course once my 16" gunned Fast Battleships are finished it would be game over for the Regia Marina. And the eleven battles of the Isonzo suggest how trying to use numbers to overwhelm a good defensive position with sheer mass would go.
From an in-universe perspective, it's entirely possible they didn't, and instead blundered into a situation where war was the only possible course of action.
Indeed, in-universe it might be Austria declaring war, since IIRC there's technically no way to do that yourself in game.
Alternatively, it could be the Italians declaring war on the Ottomans for Libya, only to be horrified when the Austrians hold up their end of the treaties and join the war.
