"Battle turn-away," incidentally, is the tactic whereby each ship in a battle line basically spins in place (I oversimplify here), allowing the fleet to withdraw in short order instead of having to have the whole line steam around in a circle. It's the tactic that Scheer used twice for the German fleet to flee for the nearest mattress to hide under withdraw safely from the British dreadnought fleet at IRL Jutland.
the british one is designed similar to the IRL HMS Dreadnought, with the same turret positioning. The said positioning is much worse than the four centerline turrets on my centurion, plus superfiring. Further, the British centurion has 12" guns to my one's 14" guns. Finally, german centurion has thinker belt armor than the british one. They have the same speed though. In other words, in a fight, german centurion would easily come out on top.
3 kiel class and Emden. Not a bad lineup in my opinion.
Well what's this?
Good thing CruDiv1 did that turn, because we would have missed that otherwise. It appeared well behind us, so I'm going to have my cruisers TURN THE HECK AROUND. Because we should go after that sucker of course. I just hope it's not a battlecruiser though, I don't have any DDs or even submerged launchers on me, so I can't torpedo it and well, battlecruiser. Battlecruisers tend to be an order of magnitude scarier than cruisers.
Well, the lookouts guess a cruiser, so that's nice and should be stompable.
Well, it's running away and we don't seem to be gaining so it might be a CL, but I hope it's not because I want to kill a cruiser, I need the VP to stay ahead of Britain.
It seems to have turned away, likely trying to escape, and it just might, considering it looks like the distance to their ship has increased since a moment ago. Not a good sign and does suggest it is a light cruiser. Dang.
And we've lost sight of it. Bugger. Well, I guess we just try to go to wherever it might go if it keeps its current course.
We seem to be gaining on them for some reason. Not sure why, but ok, I'll take it. It'll only allow me to get them sooner.
It looks like they tried escaping by turning to a new direction. Not going to work, still going to be hammering them.
Blast. It got away again.
I keep getting glimpses of it going to various places, not entirely sure where, but I think I can take them, as they seem only slightly faster than me and is maneuvering, slowing it down. I've also decided to send Freya back to base, as I don't think I need that many ships at the moment.
Well, after a while of chasing this idiot and them LANDING A HIT ON ME (not allowed), the lookouts have FINALLY decided it's a CL.
Dang, they must have some pretty good gunners, they just landed another no-penetration hit. They're clearly using pretty light shells, so they won't be doing any damage, but still annoying.
Finally, I have a hole in them. That'll hopefully slow them down enough, because I'm tired of chasing these pricks.
… And Kiel broke a turret. Nice job there. At least it's the middle one, which I don't need much.
More hits is always nice!
They're identified and shot again. Kind of a funny design, but I can see its use with firing better fore and aft than other setups.
More hits! Also, the buggers managed to land a damaging hit, which is annoying, but more hits on them.
I think they can't handle the dakka from 8 10" guns firing on them. Maybe. Well, might as well apply more.
And sinking. Time to turn about and head home. They have torpedo tubes and even sinking ships can use those for a lot of damage, so I should probably be quick about it.
Heading home.
Well that's annoying. We *just* missed the CA, which would have been a much better target, annoyingly (the straight line that got away from us)
Considering a follow-up to the D-class, but I think they'll probably do fine for battleships for me once they're done. On the other hand, I feel a new battlecruiser or 2 would help quite a bit. Maybe. I'll consider that sort of thing later.
Oh for crap's sake. That isn't helping at all. It was probably inevitable but still annoying.
Middle, we aren't really *that* screwed over, but as Britain is fully battleship spam capable and I really don't want to deal with that more than necessary, so I don't think I'll try to hold on and continue the war.
Of course. Nobody failed to see that coming.
Bottom. That was totally unwarranted and frankly a bit hostile.
Meh. Not much at all, but nice all the same.
You know what, sure. I need the extra VP for winning or at least getting off cleanly in this war, and this seems like a good opportunity to get that.
Alright, 1 battleship (Chancellor) 2 pre-Magnificents, along with Emden and Freya. Seems like a nice setup to me, even without and a bunch of destroyers coming along, some even equipped with one of the new double torpedo mounts.
It looks like I can find the target area by clicking on the thing that tells me what I am supposed to do, so my plan is to steam straight there (not as if I have any other option, the controls are locked at the moment), then shoot the ship out of anyone that tries to fight me with 14" shells, with an extra 12" shell or two for the lols.
Well, first target to shoot has been sighted, probably.
Well hi there. HAVE SKIRMISH CRUISERS (they're like battlecruisers but smaller) AND SOME 10" SHELLS AT HIGH SPEED.
He appears to be turning about. Interesting, we'll see why in a bit.
It looks like the lookouts think it's a CL. Alright.
After a bit of continuing on with the fleet and letting the cruiser run towards vaguely west-northwest, which won't necessarily help it at all, it is identified as a Persian-class. In my opinion one of the brits' more reasonably designed CLs, but still not a heavy cruiser that is almost 20K tons, by a long shot. Oh, yeah, and its 21 knots. So even my C-class could almost keep up with it, at flank.
Oh, hey. More targets, nice.
HOSHIT. TURNING THE HELL AROUND AND GETTING THE HELL OUT OF HERE BECAUSE THOSE ARE BATTLESHIPS.
And at least one is a Renown class. Fudge.
Wait… the British only have 3 Renowns… and the lookouts claim there is four there… go home, lookouts, you're so very drunk. In any case, I'm willing to risk the VP loss from not sinking the convoy for not having to deal with THAT, so I'm just going to bail, because I just can't really handle that sort of firepower.
But not before I at least try a destroyer torpedo run, as I think I might be able to get a torpedo into at least one of those battleships before my DDs are sunk.
Actually… that's a pretty big screening force. Well, screw it. Losing a destroyer matters much less than a heavily damaged battleship, so FULL SPEED AHEAD.
Almost there…
Shit! S53 got hit! Well, LAUNCH ALL THE TORPEDOES, before you can't.
More torpedoes, because we need them launched now before I don't have a chance to anymore…
And 55 just used up her other torpedo on a destroyer. God dang it. I guess I'm breaking off now.
Well, as I want to at least do something, I'm going to have chancellor do a short pass on the British pre-dreads, hopefully without entering gunnery range of the renowns.
Alright, about ten minutes, then I get the hell out.
Actually, leaving now instead. They've got battlecruisers and I hope I can at least separate them out before I have to deal with them.
It looks like the ships that are pursuing my retreating battleships are renowns. You know something funny about that? The renowns are exactly as fast as my battleships. That means that they'll probably end up staying just where they are now relative to me, and it turns out I can fire on them with all of my ships at their current distance. Meanwhile, the renowns can also barely fire on me. Another fact? Most hits at this range will be falling shot. Finally? The renowns have, it seems, poor deck armor.
Be fun if the Brits' explodeyboats come into play...
(It's interesting, because the situation you have here is similar to IRL Jutland. During the Run to the South, the range opened to where the Germans' 12-in. guns were out of range. However, the Von der Tann, Germany's first and smallest battlecruiser, mounting 11-in. guns, had been built with turrets that could be adjusted to a higher elevation. This permitted it to attack at a longer range--and resulted in plunging fire hitting Indefatigable, penetrating a turret, and detonating a magazine.)
I've decided to actually have my fleeing battleships turn southward, as before they were steaming roughly west, which that would delay the approach of night slightly, which I will need to escape.
Also, Chancellor got hit, though nothing of importance was damaged.
Soon, I will be able to make my escape.
Ouch though. Chancellor got hit again, this time in the Y turret, disabling it. Bugger.
Also, hey, only one renown for the four (despite Britain only having 3, this is clearly bull) is in sighting range, and they're probably got a similar view. Nice.
Even better! He's turning away! This is a wonderful development in the field of me getting the hell out of there.
Well that at least is an upside to this stupid battle.
Wait, why THE HELL are there two caesars and two howes?
That is clearly bullshit and I will look into if there're duplicates in the game files. Because if so, TERMINATING THAT SHIT.
edit: turns out that there isn't actually full duplicates, there were in that battle though, not sure why
At shotgun ranges +1 10 inchers have 13,5" of pen. That is enough to core BC's.
BB's? Sure. But even those it could put up a fight against if they were not top of the line 50k ton monsters.
You can take a guess how the CL and CA fared against it.
While my battleships will be fine for the future, I feel like I need more battlecruiser. While it has only 12" of armor on its belt (and AoN, though it is not visible in the picture), it has 1925-spec deck armor (the armor needed never will get above 4.5 inches deck), so it'll be fine at long ranges, and with the 26 knots it has, it should be able to keep well away from any enemies (with reasonable armor and armament) that want to take it down. I don't think it could beat Lord K's U-class, but I think it could at least go down fighting, which is dang fine in my opinion. I'm going to order one.
Also, apparently 0 months until Centurion is done. Huh.
Anyway, next turn.
And Centurion is done! Just need to get its crew ready and trained.
Also, better accuracy. Nice.
Once again, a mediocre job from my subs. Not too bad for submarines but I feel raiders will be more efficient.
Also, the brits tried to intercept a raider and failed miserably.
Next turn I guess, no battles apparently.
Better HE shells is nice, though I wonder how we got them.
I KNOW YOU'RE STARVING. YOU ARE AWARE I CAN'T DO CRAP ABOUT IT?
You know what? No. I'm going to wait until Centurion is in active service before I go into any more capital ship battles.
This I'm OK with though. After all, I have tons of destroyers.
Alright, 3 3-torpedo version destroyers and 3 2-torpedo ships. Not bad, I can work with this.
You know the situation is bad when German newspapers start publishing in French. (Insert joke about anti-war sentiments being better expressed in a language that has words for "surrender.")
Huh, destroyers. Unsurprising. Annoyingly though, the Ouse class has a much higher speed than my destroyers (2 knots faster), making it a very frustrating target in all likeliness. I think I'll try to head ahead of them to cut them off from their current course, and if they turn to engage, that just makes it all the easier.
Huh, one of their DDs is a Welland, which only makes 32 knots, same as my destroyers. That'll hopefully hold them back enough to be easier to engage.
Actually, 2 of their DDs here are Wellands. That's nice.
While it looks like the brits are fleeing, I do manage to land a hit on one of the trailing wellands. Not bad, and it looks to have slowed it markedly.
Hmm, it looks like they're turning to engage. A foolish choice in my opinion, as their biggest advantage, speed, tends to work best for running and similar actions, rather than fighting.
Hm, the British appear to have finally returned fire, though it did negligible amounts of damage. Also, the fore dual torpedo mount on S62 has just been used, it remains to be seen if any hits will be achieved. Likely not, but at the very least it'll muddle up their formation.
Oh dang that bullet flail. While my destroyers and the enemies' ones are sailing past each other, both sides just landed a TON of hits, and the brits haven't tried to dodge my torpedoes yet. Here's hoping they continue to fail to maneuver.
Blast, the torpedo attack missed. Luckily, there looks to be another torpedo on a course for one of the wellands, and its pretty close. Nothing much else happened this turn though.
As the brits are fleeing north, I'm going to follow them. I want to at least sink one of them this battle.
Specifically, I'm aiming for at least one or two hits on the Ouse-class that appears to have taken some damage in the wild torpedo exchange.
One of my destroyers finally lands a 4" hit on the Ouse-class. Nice, let's hope it broke the engines so I can take it down better.
More hits is always better, though they managed to knock out the Y turret, which probably won't do much.
Well that's just wonderful. Looks like I'm going to have to let them off this battle sadly.
OH CRAP. That's going to suck on a destroyer.
Well, nothing sank, so that was underwhelming, but OK.
And now you see why I tend to skip destroyer battles unless I feel unusually confident for some reason.
Destroyer Battles are extremely difficult for a human player to beat the AI in terms of fancy maneuvering. You have to rely on superior numbers, superior designs, and/or sheer luck.
Your ability to set your non-flagship destroyer squadrons to Independent and AI-Control, while signaling Flotilla attack, will let them chase the enemy down with superior AI control, if you have done significant damage in the first part of the engagement.
Once again, no updates today. The Internet was out all day so I couldn't upload images or post at all from my computer. I will try to get an apology update up tomorrow for apologizing for not posting anything today or Friday.
GOD FUDGING DAMNIT! I kind of need those ships, you know.
Still around a year until I can have the D-class to reinforce my fleet. By then the war will, have reached 2 years.
No battles, so next turn.
Improvements in productivity? While revolution is uncomfortably near? How? Better machinery is my only guess.
Going to take the hit and go for the middle. While it is humiliating as heck doing this, I'm going to do so, because frankly, I don't like this war any more than the populace. I never was going for territory expansion (don't' have the tonnage and troops for that), and I was really only fighting not to lose. You know, *MAYBE* I should try to fight someone other than Britain… that might help this sad and terrible war, and others like it.
Hooray…
And with that, I think the war was a net loss.
And difficulties in tech just have to go along with the relieving end of the war.
...Probably the right call. If things kept on this way, Schleiswig-Holstein would be demanding Home Rule before you finished sinking the Brits' explodeyboats.
Well, if you have a navy that's large and developed enough that it doesn't die outright in two wars against Britain, then I'm pretty sure you could easily crush neighbouring nations' navies. You just seem to have the misfortunate of getting into fights with the largest kid on the block.
Well, if you have a navy that's large and developed enough that it doesn't die outright in two wars against Britain, then I'm pretty sure you could easily crush neighbouring nations' navies. You just seem to have the misfortunate of getting into fights with the largest kid on the block.
well, that's kind of what happened IRL, just with more revolutions and somewhat less wars. also, update.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alright, today I'm going to be doing the most fun part of this game ever! Working out how to get a handle on my budget.
Alright, I want to get that 7.4 million down to at least 3 million, ideally less.
Firstly, reducing the D-class to a less hurried construction pace lops off 1.2 million already. An excellent start, in my opinion.
6.2 million, around 3.5 million to go.
.3 Million more shaved off, by setting the remaining ships of the B-class to reserve, like the A-class before them. Additionally, I considered putting the duala-class into reserves (shown here), but I decided against it. Finally, the V1 class destroyers in northern Europe were also put into reserves, considering their use as ASW and coastal patrol ships at this point.
And finally, I have halted construction on the Volition. It is rather far from completion, and frees up a lot of budget in halting construction.
Well, with that done, next turn I guess.
Bigger shipyards is always nice.
And the first of my next 6 destroyers is complete.
Meh. I'd like that, but I don't particularly prioritize it.
A few more destroyers due tomorrow, then I might be able to restart construction on Volition, the longer we wait, the worse. Also, it looks like my unrest is gradually ticking down, which is nice.
Anyway, onto next turn.
Yay, four more destroyers for me! They're a bit slower than the enemy nations' destroyers, but pack a heck of a lot more punch.
And there's my second proper Magnificent (reminder, first all big gun battleship was the Magnificent) battleship in active service. My battleship fleet may be of fewer numbers than most, but it has some of the biggest and most modern battleships available, at least unless someone makes something better than the D-class.
Better armor is nice, though it would be nice if I had it earlier. Not too much of a problem though.
