Rule the Waves, consistently making too few ships, with the germans!

[AtlanticShipping]

Time to spam cheap CA's like candy. 8k tons and 8 inch guns with heavy armor and 21 knots should give you some staying power.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Time to spam cheap CA's like candy. 8k tons and 8 inch guns with heavy armor and 21 knots should give you some staying power.

Click to shrink...

maybe. I do have 2 new cruisers (the Kiel class) almost done, and one more coming later, in addition to my battlecruiser forces. I can also accelerate construction on some ships if needed.

 

[Exterminatus]

Just toss more destroyers at them! Nothing can possibly go wrong with this idea.

 

[Fission Battery]

I may not know much, if anything, about naval design and warfare, but that Barfleur was a fucking beast for a pre-dreadnought battleship! Why did Russia declare war on you? I could see that tension levels were rising, but was there any reason why that was happening?

 

[TortugaGreen]

I may not know much, if anything, about naval design and warfare, but that Barfleur was a fucking beast for a pre-dreadnought battleship! Why did Russia declare war on you? I could see that tension levels were rising, but was there any reason why that was happening?

Click to shrink...

1. The barfleur was in fact, a "fucking beast". Especially in that secondary armament.
2. Tensions had been rising steadily for a while, but I was not aware of any reasons for it.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Note: 2 months until two of three Kiel-class cruisers are completed, and are effectively weird pocket battlecruisers.

I am also ordering 3 more DDs of the 900 ton version, just to improve my screening resources.



Huh.



Seriously, our subs are pretty bad it seems, or maybe the Russians are just the kings of ASW. That's also possible.



My minesweepers appear to be having a good time with the Russian trait of heavy mine use.



I'm pretty sure the British have a dreadnought here too, but eh. Why not. Can't put it off forever… actually, I think I can. I refuse.



I'll accept this though, as a good portion of the Russian battleships are comparable to my A-class, with 11" guns.



Yay, mostly A-class.



This'll be a fun bit of sprinting.



Great they've got more battleships than me I think.



I'm counting 6, maybe 7 enemies? Not odds I like, and either way more battleships than I have in total.



Actually more like 5 enemies, a far more reasonable quantity.



Holy crap, Amazone just took two hits from those battleship's main guns. That must have been painful.



Okay, maaaybe I should have her get back. Holding up surprisingly well though.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Merchants are screwed though.



Can't save the merchants now. I'm going to take my potshots and bail.



Not comfortable with those DDs, they unnerve me.



Suicidal torpedo attack [ACTIVATED]



AYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA

… and I failed.



At least I dispersed their battleline, so I'll hopefully be able to sink this battleship that came towards my retreating ships.



Oh, fun. More enemy battleships to deal with.



And there goes half of my 12" guns for this battle.



At least that Tsesarevich class is turning away.



Oh, yay, more enemies. This is gradually turning into a mildly dangerous shooting gallery for the Russians.




Oh, and I'm running out of ammo to throw in the Russian's general direction.

Well, at least I'm landing some hits on the Russians, though the best yet for my ships was around 4 hits over 3 minutes.



I'm going to take a probably stupid risk here and have Archer and Armorer sail across the bow of the leading tsesarevich, as I hope to try to hit their belt armor.

 

[Kuja]

"I must break you."

 

[TortugaGreen]

Hmm, while it denies Archer and Armorer good BE hit chnces, it allows them to Budget and Armored, as well as lessening the amount of guns that the Russians can bring to bear on the more damaged ships of my fleet.



The Russians are leaving range of my battleships, but that means my battleships are leaving their gun's range too.



Alright, my battleships have done their job. Now to leave.



I'm not quite clear on how that worked, as the only losses I experienced were my DDs and the merchants… yeah, it was the merchants' unavoidable loss.



I think I'm like 1500 or so points behind the brits and the Russians at this point.



Wait, why is Duala in the Mediterranean? Get back to northern Europe at once, we need that cruiser.



1 turn.



Meh, cool. Can't just put it on my future ships, I need to start construction on new ones for that.



Also nice, if not too significant.



This on the other hand… nice.



[Unamused face]



Alright, not bad.



Once again, the French are losing tons of ships in this.

Also, I think the Italians are the only European power (not counting AH, they're not included) not wrapped up in this. Some sort of really early and screwed up Great War? Seems like it.

Also, Vineta is delayed a month, so my Kiel-class ships will be done at roughly the same time.



There we go, cruiser for me. Kiel is delayed though, so next turn I hope?

 

[TortugaGreen]

Nice. Bigger ships for me! I might even be able to make a practically armored battleship at this point.



Typical.



Bottom. I don't like my unrest and want it to go away.





Nice to know that I'm getting something out of all these bloodbaths of battles.



Bugger. Every bit of good news is coupled with similar bad news.



Oh nice, though it seems that I outright skipped 4 centerline and went straight to 5. Cool.



More boom is better, though it would be nice if they could figure out how to put it inside the enemy's bigger ships before it goes off.



Eye for an eye I see.

A total of 14 enemy merchants sunk by my raider this turn,



Resulting in Britain having to deal with even more starvation. Cool.



How bad are the French at battleships if they sink so much?



Refuse, because there is precedent for a beat-down with this.



I'm going to order one of these ships, a sort of overgrown X-class with 14" guns and better torpedo protection, if the same speed issue as the X class.

Anyway, with that taken care of, moving on to the next turn.



Kiel's done, finally.



Any British or Russian subs that existed would be bothered by this, if there were any.



I wonder who that was.



Meh, standard token VP.



DAMN they held out long.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Oh for crap's sake.



At least I get some DDs for my efforts.



I also get a broken ship to be fixed. Wonderful.



WOOOOO… excuse me. *ahem* WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP



Probably as ship that came here as touring around for foreign station and is now stuck.



France continues to be mildly useful though, which is nice.



NO. sLet me get my stuff together first at least.



I'll accept this one though, on the off-chance that Zeppelin can join.



Bugger.



Not out in front, but that doesn't change anything much at all.



Alright. Generally these are standard autodesign bad CAs, so I'm not worried, but then, I would prefer a more unbalanced battle towards me, but I only have these two CAs here, so that's a problem.



First hit of the battle and it takes out a turret. Wonderful.



Darn negligence.



NO ESCAPE.



I'm going to have Frauenlob smash the now crippled Bayan class, while Victoria Louise and Duala go after the still functional Bogatyr.



Apparently the Bogatyr is now sinking, according to the tooltip.

Random note: apparently Victoria Louise is .16 nautical miles long, putting her at 296.32 meters long. Huh, okay.



Yeah, done for.



They all sank



First victory of the war against Russia, but not the first against Britain.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Sweet, some prestige and VP equalization.



!



!!



Huh. I am apparently blockading Russia.

 

[bdun140]

Honestly, at the start of this, I was expecting you to get your shit pushed in by the Royal Navy. The Russian navy, on the other hand, is an utter clown-show. You've got this in the bag.
EDIT: Deleted fuck-huge image and replaced it with something more reasonable.

 

[Fission Battery]

They're French pre-dreadnought battleships! Did you really expect them to be functional?

 

[TortugaGreen]

Next turn, nothing more for this one.



Nice. Good CAs +1



Meh, could be worse. But still, none were sunk, so that is nice.



It looks like Russia may be even worse than the French at pre-dreads.



Still going to refuse. I've got the tiniest battleline ever, so I can't really do this.



The next offer is this, which I CAN'T do, because of having no cruisers in that area.



Going to have Armored go to SEA, just to make sure no invasions are attempted.

Also, ordering another Kiel class, as more cruisers is always better.

Moving on.



Nice! More funding for me, hopefully significantly.



Having Kiel in active service will be nice, those ships are probably more pocket battlecruisers than anything else.



Cool, but mind telling me what you've figured out?



Nope. Already described reasons.



Well, that's a thing. Hopefully the people will calm down in a bit when the war ends.

Nothing to do, next.



And now begins the great game of squatting on Russia until they give out.



Though they're putting up a fight.



Eh, why not. I kind of want to see what happens.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Apparently it just means I have a crapton of DDs in this battle.

By the way, the main force that I can control is the new 900 ton ships with tons of 4" guns (15 in that group there) and the screen are 700 ton boats, with 3 4" guns each. And they all have 2 12" torpedoes.



[Target acquired]



Way too slow for a CL. Probably a merchant.



Apparently actually a DD. Interesting.



1 DD, likely screwed, an MS, and something larger. Either a CL or a merchant. More likely the latter.



I'm going to have DesDiv 2 break off and go after the MS and the other Bistri class.



Considering the first Bistri has dropped to 5 knots, I'm going to have S54 launch a torpedo, as I doubt it'll be reasonably possible to miss at the speed of that DD.



Hit. I only just discovered I can order ships to attack with torpedoes. let's be honest though, that Bistri is going down now, if it wasn't before.



Dang, that MS has some big guns (5" it turns out)



Considering all but one Bistri class has escaped to inside the minefield, I will have DesDiv 2 meet back up with Desdiv 1.



Get back here you little GAH!

Okay, I'm going to disengage.



Okay that's a lot of support.



This'll be fun. FOR THE KAISER!



Minimum range torpedo launches: good idea? We'll see.



As spewing torpedoes seems to be somewhat innefective against DDs, I'm just going to resort to shooting everyone I can to crap and scooting out. But not before MASS TORPEDO FLAIL.



Three torpedoes expended, likely no hits, but it might help further disjoint the Russian DD group allowing me to escape effectively.



I'm going to fire another torpedo at an enemy that seems to have lost mobility.



Bugger. It's probably going to sink anyway though.



Second try. This time it's on a broadside, so the launch should be more likely to hit.



Yup. That's 2 DDs sunk or sinking. And a valuable bit of knowledge acquired.

 

[TortugaGreen]

I thought I torpedoed the Moshhni, but apparently it survived. I guess it was a dud torpedo.



I'm going to accelerate construction on the Yeoman, aY-class (I blame Y being obscure), and Xenon, which is a tanky, slower backwards Y-class.
Done with this month, moving on to the next one.



DDs? I'll take it.



Hoo boy. Bottom, as it'll decrease unrest, and I'm more worried about that than prestige at the moment.



Huh, the Russians have subs. Interesting.



Meh, not significant.



I want to accept, but I also don't. Nope.



THIS I'll take though, as my cruiser force, while just as crippled as my battlefleet, has very good ships, if nothing else, and hopefully the Kiel and Vineta will be in this one.



Nice. The fact that I have a BC here more than overcomes the frustration of having a CL.



Alright, enemy sighted.



Hmm, bit smaller than I would like. But I'll shoot it.



Bit fast for my preferences, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Hit is nice, and at least isn't returned at all.

Additionally, later, one of Zeppelin's 13" shells hits the target, and likely trashed SOMETHING.



Gradually, more hits start to land as hits damage the engines.



The broadside of a battlecruiser is a bad place for anything not a battleship to be.



See? Bad place.



Yeah, escape is and hasn't been an option for a while now.



Hello~



FLEE FOOL! [evil laughing] I may be getting a bit excited.



Bad move, son.



Remember that other cruiser I sunk? It died due to being in pretty much this position.



Looks like the Bogatyr is trying to turn away. Not getting away that easily.



All the main guns are disabled, so the Bogatyr can't even fight back, and has lost enough speed that it can't escape either. There's only one direction it'll go. Down. Also, just noticed THAT SECONDARY ARMAMENT. 12 8" guns on a CA of this time? In CASEMATES? I don't even.



It put up a good fight for a CA against a BC, but it'll go down soon.

The rest proceeds pretty much as is expected at this point, Zeppelin circles the Bogatyr until it sinks.



Did any survive?



Nope, none did.



Huh, the Voin, the Bogatyr class had the highest hit rate of the battle. Interesting. Must have been an expert crew likely.



2K VP and a prestige? Nice, for only killing a CA.

Also, random thought: the enemies in this game are somewhat Jacky fisher-esque, but instead of "SPEED IS ARMOR", they have "GUNS ARE ARMOR".

 

[Fission Battery]

Is 12 eight inch guns a lot for an armoured cruiser?

 

[Cavalier]

I'd note by closing in that way you put yourself at risk of having Zeppelin eat a torpedo. Given that 13" guns should easily penetrate the armor of any CL period and any CA armor well outside torpedo range, you may want to consider if the advantages of that tactic are really worthwhile. And even a crippled enemy ship with intact submerged torpedo tubes can fire them off in a last bit of defiance.

Those ships tend not to have their crews rescued afterward, but it happens and it sucks hard.

 

[TortugaGreen]

I'd note by closing in that way you put yourself at risk of having Zeppelin eat a torpedo. Given that 13" guns should easily penetrate the armor of any CL period and any CA armor well outside torpedo range, you may want to consider if the advantages of that tactic are really worthwhile. And even a crippled enemy ship with intact submerged torpedo tubes can fire them off in a last bit of defiance.

Those ships tend not to have their crews rescued afterward, but it happens and it sucks hard.

Click to shrink...

All true. Though doing that was likely habit from dealing with pre-dreads, as for a few years at the start, you have to get to practically boarding range for effective penetration.

 

[TortugaGreen]

New turn, new ship.



Also, apparently better shells too. Nice.



France does its part, to a degree.



Uh. Ok.



TBH that was the only option they really had.



Sure, why not.



That as fast. Interestingly, the core group is V27 class, where the screen is V28 class, a straight reversal of the previous position.



Hello target practice.



Lots of hits. That means that my gunners know which way the enemy is, if not much more.



Target #2 has appeared.



Hey, cool! These ones shoot back!



And there are a lot of them too.



Sadly, the Russians land the first hit. Foo.



Dang, these Russians are surprisingly good shots.



That's more damage than I'd like but still manageable.



This is getting to be a bit of a fustercluck to be honest.



If that hits… (it did not hit.)



They're trying to run? Ok, but no.

 

[TortugaGreen]

Point blank 4" spam solves everything.



Additional gunnery flail necessary. After this, I'll probably leave.



I've taken control of my 4"-spamming DDs, the V28 class, and I'm having them provide further shell flail.



Nice hits. It's a DD, so those hits are going to hurt.



Pretty sure they're done for at this point, as DDs can take about 0 damage without losing something important.



It seems the Bistri class is trying to get away. I'm not sure how well that'll work, when full of 4" shell holes and even in perfect condition slower than my DDs in their current condition.



Looks like it's starting to have engine and rudder issues, as it's going at around 3 knots and swerving all over the place.



The last nail is put into the coffin as S36 launches a torpedo.



Luckily for the crew of the BIstri class DD, the torpedo misses. Unluckily, I have more.



Might be overkill, launching 2 torpedoes, but one of them might be a dud, so just in case.



Turns out the torpedoes were a waste of ammo. The target sunk anyway.



Oh, fun. More enemy DDs, and they made contact with my damaged destroyers, not the intact ones!



Luckily, DesDiv 2 is coming and should be able to help when they arrive.



As night falls, and I lose any chance of finding the enemy, V45 loses division contact, and I send the rest of the division over to reacquire contact.



Hi there, DD.



That was probably from one of the Russian minesweepers with 5" guns.



Turns out both were DDs.

 

[TortugaGreen]

At least unidentifieDD got hit by a shell, even if that torpedo missed.



Looks like they're trying to use my force's being spread out to escape. Not letting that happen.



Thanks to S34 separating off, I can now more effectively surround this Bistri class at least.



Though S34 jammed a turret, it's not a problem, as I am pretty sure the bistri there is worse off.



The S34 fires a torpedo, which might hit thanks to the Bistri class losing a lot of speed, but it might not, because it can still move.



All of my DDs have detached by now, so I'm just having them attack in circles around the Bistri class.



Huh. It sank before I could beat on it more. Also, S34 rejoined the division.



Now, on to leaving.



Daybreak, and more target practice!



Turns out, when the target is going 5 knots, they can't dodge very well.



Cool.

 

[Fission Battery]

With your current technology could you make a dreadnought battleship?