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Rule The Waves 3 - A Graphical Experiment - Complete

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[X] A third Super Cruiser of the Indomptable-class
[X] Close the torpedo school, specialists are no good without ships for them.
 
[X] Reduce the research budget, we need that money.
[X] Submarines are doing very well. Lay down another group.
 
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Peace Negotiations
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    • Adhoc vote count started by 4WheelSword on Apr 9, 2024 at 6:36 AM, finished with 4 posts and 4 votes.
    • [X] Submarines are doing very well. Lay down another group.
      [X] A third Super Cruiser of the Indomptable-class
      [X] Close the torpedo school, specialists are no good without ships for them.
      [X] Close the night fighting school, specialists are no good without ships for them.
      [X] Reduce the research budget, we need that money.
    Click to expand...


    Our budget is limited. Select one of the following to focus on: A third Super Cruiser of the Indomptable-class, and Submarines are doing very well. Lay down another group.
    We could reduce costs elsewhere to free up more money for construction. Select one of the following: Close the torpedo school, specialists are no good without ships for them.


    August 1911 - Wartime Closures
    Closing the torpedo school will save us a little more than a million francs per month, a huge amount compared to our overall budget. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Germans are heavily favouring their navy as compared to any other government spending, allowing them to maintain the Bundesmarine at an oversized level as compared to their competitor nations. Thus we have to make sacrifices in order to stay competitive.

    The first French air station opens in September, a gathering of eight airships built by both Astra-Torres and Chalais-Meudon. In good weather these ships will be used for scouting the North Sea and the Channel approaches, ensuring no German ships can attempts to make a break for the Atlantic without us knowing. A second base will be established at Brest to give further coverage across the Bay of Biscay.
    ​

    Later the same month, we see additional action in the North Sea. The Lille, Duquesne and the Suffren, accompanied by the United States treaty cruiser USS Pittsburgh, engage a German Vineta not long after sunrise. With Contre-Amiral de Surgey ordering flank speed, the four cruisers begin their pursuit. The Pittsburgh engages first, smashing the Vineta several times with her big 230mm guns. With the German thus slowed, the older French cruisers are able to move to contact and open fire. The German ship is set aflame, immobilised and then torpedoed by accompanying boat flotillas. Survivors, all seventeen of them, are picked up according to our moral duty.

    USS Pittsburgh photographed from the Suffren​

    Our development centres have also considered the idea of a 'fire predictor' or director to be mounted high up on a ships superstructure. This would gather information for plotting tables to be able to calculate the firing angles the guns need to hit their targets. While new ships will be constructed with this new fire control system, older ships will have to wait before we can consider refitting them.

    Elsewhere, the Foch and the Waldeck Rousseau, sailing in company with the now familiar USS Pittsburgh, move to defend a friendly merchant group sailing into the Western approaches. They find a group of small German protected cruisers and torpedo boats attempting to make an attack. The enemy ships, heavily outnumbered, retreat and are not seen again before the merchants make port.


    November 1911 - Indomptable
    We lay down a third of the 25,000 ton cruisers, this time another of the type 'a' with its 300mm guns and 28 knots of speed. She will be the Terrible and we can look forward to the terror she will strike into the hearts of our enemies.

    The Spanish ship Emperador Carlos V with her 250mm guns in a lozenge arrangement.​

    An attack on a German merchant group begins with an enemy torpedo boat exploding and the rapid sinking of two more. Multiple transport ships follow after before the Emile Bertin, a protected cruiser of an older style, torpedoes a German cruiser of equivalent tonnage. Sadly, the same cruiser takes a hit of her own and sinks not long after. The captain of La Gallissioniere takes out his frustrations on another German cruiser, leaving the final loss count at one protected cruiser and one torpedo boat for France, and two cruisers of 7,900 tons, four torpedo boats and sixteen merchants for the Germans.

    The war continues and so do the losses. Plongeur(1902) and Triton(1910) are lost on patrol, presumably to enemy action. We lay down a new class of medium-range boats, four that will make up the Farfadet-class. We also lay down new torpedo boats, the Francisque-class, which carry four torpedo tubes in twin barrelled launchers as well as 100mm guns fore and aft. This is followed swiftly after by the Fronde-class, two-hundred tons larger and fitting two more 100mm guns as well as an extra knot of speed.

    ​


    February 1912 - Peace Efforts
    We have had the first signals that peace would be agreeable to the German people. Given that they have been under blockade for a year at this point, that is of no question, but it does raise one: We did not choose this war, but still we are here. What do we actually want to achieve?

    The German armoured cruiser Derfflinger in port​
    We should seek:
    [ ] A white peace and the satisfaction of an end to the interminable Naval Treaty.
    [ ] The holdings our enemy maintains in Africa.
    [ ] The holdings our enemy maintains in the South Pacific.
    [ ] Something else entirely - Write in.
     
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    • [X] The holdings our enemy maintains in Africa.

    We shall save Africa from the dread German monarchy, despotism, and backwardness! Francafrique!
     
    [X] The holdings our enemy maintains in Africa.

    The African holdings are not quite so valuable as the ones in the Pacific, but they are A)much closer to home and thus easier to defend and B) significantly less likely to create tension with Japan or America
     
    Technological Developments
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    • Adhoc vote count started by 4WheelSword on Apr 11, 2024 at 7:59 AM, finished with 8 posts and 8 votes.
    Click to expand...

    I no longer have a migraine so we are back babyyyyy
    We should seek: The holdings our enemy maintains in Africa.

    Detonations
    In late march a patrolling corvette comes across the debris of a battle. The cruiser Descartes (4,000 tons) appears to have engaged the enemy just South of the British coast. Sadly the only remains of the ship are some floating debris, making it hard to identify anything but the final outcome of the engagement. We will hold services for the crew of the Descartes this week.

    The Descartes during her sea trials​

    The research teams have some interesting new ideas however. It should be possible to improve the armouring of large ships by only protecting the vital compartments. This 'all-or-nothing' protection scheme would prioritise those sections that are vital to fighting the ship, such as the magazines and main citadel. Meanwhile, the other spaces would be left entirely unprotected to reduce overall weight and improve sailing characteristics. This may well allow for faster, better protected ships than those we are currently building.

    The Eurydice intercepts a German light cruiser in May and comes out the worst in the engagement. The submarine Silure also fails to return home from her patrol, marking the first lost of one of the larger, more advanced submarines since their completion this year. In late May, a three cruiser squadron led by the Duquesne under Captain Antras engages a single 16,000 ton German treaty cruiser as well as, later on, a pair of smaller, older Armoured Cruisers. A daring attack by a torpedo boat squadron manages to hit a Vineta with two torpedoes, but she remained in the fight somehow. The latter half of the battle involved drawing the German flotilla under the eyes of a coastal artillery battery and daring them to move to engage.

    Reviews of the German papers in the following days reveal that no torpedoes struck any German ships at all. A strange confluence of events.


    Last of the treaty cruisers
    The Chanzy, second of the Amiral Charner-class cruisers, leaves the slips with the first superstructure designed to carry the heavy weight of directors high up in the air. She is the last cruiser we will build limited by naval treaty, and though she will surely be a fine ship, she hardly compares to the Super Cruisers that will be joining the fleet in the coming years.
    ​

    An operation to protect a gathering of merchant ships in June has the Foch and the Waldeck Rousseau engaging several German ships including a Derflinger--class. Several merchants are lost, though most of the convoy survives, and the Hapsburg-class protected cruiser is sunk by a submarine in the wake of the engagement. Later the same week, the armoured cruiser Montcalm finds and sinks the German light cruiser Rostock as it attempts to break through the blockade to go raiding.

    We lay down six Gnome-class coastal, short range submarines with a view to overwhelming the Germans with numbers rather than long range boats. Meanwhile, a battle is fought under the watchful eyes of French Airships, to no real effect, and a skirmish fought as winter comes to the North Sea marks the first loss in action of one of these floating giants. Crashing on landing, the Chalais-Meudon TL-5 is lost with all hands. Will the air ships survive this accident? It is currently unclear.


    Advancing the fleet
    As of the second anniversary of the war, we are eleven months from the first of our Super Cruisers reaching the water and have developed an array of new technologies that would enhance these grand and capable ships. While we (still) do not have oil to fire boilers, we can at least make high quality coal-fired boilers driving advanced turbines to push them at excellent speeds. Our armouring schemes are some of the most advanced in the world and our guns are highly effective. We are currently building three ships:

    ​
    However, we would like to take advantage of these new technologies and lay down a new, powerful ship with the best equipment we can design.
    Please select the requirements for this new class (choose as many as you would like):
    [ ] At least 26 knots of speed
    [ ] At least 28 knots of speed
    [ ] Fit the 300mm guns
    [ ] Fit the 340mm guns
    [ ] Armour equivalent to the last class
    [ ] Armour superior to the last class
    [ ] Write-in
    We have concepts for a host of new submarine designs. What should be our priority going forwards?
    [ ] Small, short-range submarines
    [ ] Mid-size, effective submarines
    [ ] Large, long-range submarines
    [ ] Mid-size submarines equipped to lay mines.
     
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    • [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Fit the 300mm guns
    [X] Armour equivalent to the last class
    [X] Mid-size, effective submarines

    Le fast
     
    [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Armour equivalent to the last class

    I am gun-agnostic. Whatever fits.

    [X] Large, long-range submarines

    To be a global power, so must we have none beyond our reach.
     
    [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Armour equivalent to the last class
    [X] Fit the 300mm guns
    [X] Mid-size, effective submarines
     
    Last edited:
    [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Fit the 300mm guns
    [X] Armour equivalent to the last class
    [X] Mid-size, effective submarines

    It is 1912. We do not even have snorkels. Long range submarines are a folly at our present stage of development.

    As for the ship, this is basically our present "Indomptable" class, but hopefully with all-or-nothing and better engines and the like we can do it for lower weight, cost, and maybe construction time. I could be convinced to a 350/28kt set, which is combining the best of both worlds of our current supercruisers, the more heavily armed Triomphante and the faster Indomptable, honestly (the Triomphante and Indomptable have the same armour, and displace roughly the same at 25 kt vs 25.5kt). I think we might do it for the same weight with our upgrades, but who knows. Maybe we could even get better armour with the savings of All-or-nothing.

    Actually, what's the current quality of our 300 vs our 350mm guns?
     
    Last edited:
    [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Fit the 300mm guns
    [X] Armour equivalent to the last class
    [X] Mid-size, effective submarines
     
    [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Armour equivalent to the last class
    [X] Fit the 300mm guns
    [X] Mid-size, effective submarines
     
    [X] At least 28 knots of speed
    [X] Armour superior to the last class
    [X] Fit the 300mm guns
    [X] Mid-size, effective submarines

    Incremental improvements aren't sexy, but they are less likely to throw unexpected problems at us
     
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    The First Battleship; The End of Germany
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    • Adhoc vote count started by 4WheelSword on Apr 12, 2024 at 6:28 AM, finished with 11 posts and 8 votes.
    Click to expand...


    Please select the requirements for this new class (choose as many as you would like): At least 28 knots of speed, Fit the 300mm guns, Armour equivalent to the last class
    What should be our priority going forwards? Mid-size, effective submarines


    The New Super Cruiser
    The changes between the Indomptable and the Illustre are, overall, minimal. The X turret will be moved aft, into a proper super firing position. Her armouring is adjusted to allow immunity to her own guns outside of eleven kilometres, and her weight is reduced just enough that she is likely to be able to make 29 knots from a set of engines producing 93,000 horse power.

    A quiet few months over winter ends with a bang in December as the French and German fleets mass to engage one another. Six Brennus-class ironclads, three Republiques and the Iena mass of the coast of the Netherlands along with a huge force of cruisers and torpedo boats, totalling some fifty or sixty ships. The main enemy force is sighted at 1300, a line of German ironclads of the Zahringen type, as well as other ships in formation with them. The first shots are fired (well, the first bar some exchanges between cruisers skirmishing) a half hour later as Contre-Amiral Jaures orders his ships to close off-angle with the German line. A turn-away jams the German line into a tight manoeuvre, and much gunfire is placed amongst their formation. Iena takes a torpedo and is detached to return home. Unfortunately, Decembers short days cut the battle short, with twilight falling across the seas at just 1530. A torpedo attack is ordered in the dying hours of the day, but sadly little comes from it and the battleships make for home.

    Fortunately, the German ships were forced to return to port and the blockade continues. Reports indicate that privations are beginning to affect the German people and strikes and anti-war demonstrations are apparently shutting down major streets in Berlin. We will soon have the peace we crave.
    ​


    The Bay of Biscay
    Barely a few weeks pass before the Germans are making another mad dash through the channel and out into the Atlantic. A squadron of six Brennus-class ironclads are there to meet them and, hopefully, force them home. Meeting at 1400, the two fleets have just a matter of hours to make their mark on one another and this time a mark is made. Torpedo boat attacks, ordered early and with plenty of light, lead to reports of at least one successful hit on an enemy ironclad. Sadly, night falls before more can be accomplished.

    These battles have cut into our torpedo forces dramatically and so, come February 1913, we lay down the Illustre and six new torpedo boats to replace our losses.

    The British have launched and commissioned the first of a new class of ship. HMS Benbow is a 22,400 ton ship carrying ten of the finest 300mm guns that the British admiralty can buy. She is only capable of 21 knots, however, and her 250mm belt will not protect her against the guns we have designated for most of our own massive ships. This Benbow is so slow that it cannot possibly be considered a threat.

    HMS Benbow fitting out​

    However, of slightly more concern is that this ship is commissioned six months before our own Indomptable will be ready. This means it is likely that the German ships will also be ready before ours, and we may fall behind temporarily. There is only so much we can do at this point, however, and thus we must wait and see.


    Convoy Raids
    The Foch and the Waldeck Rousseau, under Contre-Amiral Estienne, conduct a daring strike against German merchants, pushing through the Bundesmarine escorts and into the heart of the convoy. At close range, the Foch is able to torpedo the German armoured cruiser Derfflinger while the torpedo boat Catapulte manages the same. Late in the day, another attack leads to hits with torpedoes on a German Schwaben-class ironclad. The final cost to the enemy is the armoured cruiser Prinz Heinrich (sunk by Foch), Derfflinger and Hannover in the slips for repairs as well as thirteen merchants sunk and a torpedo boat beneath the waves.


    Revolution
    For the second time this century, Germany has collapsed into revolution. The Chancellor has been executed on the steps of the Reichstag. We inherit Cameroon, Tanganyika and some Southern African holdings in the peace treaty that is negotiated with the revolutionaries. A new, left-wing chancellor has been emplaced in power and we have established several bodies to maintain oversight as we enter a new age of peace and cooperation with the German people.
    ​

    That said, we now have our own problems. We will cut our budget to the bone to ensure we do not go bankrupt in the financial turndown after the war. We will survive. But what of the future of the Marine Nationale?
    Who do we see as our greatest enemy?
    [ ] Italy
    [ ] Russia
    [ ] Spain
    [ ] Japan
    Where should our spending focus be once we can afford it?
    [ ] Intelligence
    [ ] Colonial Forces
    [ ] Rebuilding the home fleet
    [ ] Something else - write in
     
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    • This one is going to be hard. Intelligence was already barebones last time we looked at it, we've just laid down all these lovely new cruisers, and I don't want to cut Colonial forces just after we've secured the majority (???) of Africa under our command.

    Anyway, Spain is... not much of a modern threat, I think, Russia is Russia, so I'm inclined to go for Italy. Maybe japan - what's our colonies in SEA currently?
     
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