More modest battleships

[hansandmg42]

Past 1930 battleships become ridiculously big without an ability to scale them down, like at least every nation should have 35-55k ton battleships or pocket battleships.
Building a super battleship should be an expensive one off prototype not the standard.

[blacklight101]

minimum weight, full negative on beam and draft. Nobody is *making* you use the largest hulls or the full displacement. but its also a game about the ultimate expression of what the dreadnought could have been. Look at historical size and displacement trends in periods before LNT/WNT (london/washington naval treaties) and it tracks that most nations were going "bigger is better" except france who for a brief time went with jeune ecole

[vanDyck]

You must keep in mind that ingame displacement is more fully loaded as washington standart displacement, so an iowa is getting around close or even above 57.000t.
Armor is less effective ingame, i would guess you need 2x - 3x times the thickness to achieve the same amount protection a treaty BB had. So you can easy get way above 60.000t to rebuild a treaty battleship with the same level of protection.

In the mid 20s (when i got modern and super BBs in my actual campaign starting 1890) or even the 30s you should swim in money again on a long campaign, if not, start earlier to build up your economy and conquer more.

There was a lot of cheating going on with displacement...

[Hidden Gunman]

The times I've had AI uber battleships appear, they were in limited numbers, and hard to kill, which is kind of the point of the AI having them.

As far as making them myself, that's my choice...If I dont want or need uber bb, then I make cruisers or battlecruisers, which may actually do the job better than a scaled down uber bb.

Where downscaled hulls do seem a bit of an anomaly is when you research a tech and get multiple hulls unlocked, such as dreadnought 3 and 4. Its a transitional phase where you are moving into the big ships, but you know better hulls are coming. Why build 3's when you can build 4's?

[glythe]

Originally posted by Hidden Gunman:

The times I've had AI uber battleships appear, they were in limited numbers, and hard to kill, which is kind of the point of the AI having them.

In general I would agree with this.... however the nerfs to armor make Super BB a waste of money due to fire mechanics.

It's been my experience that larger ships get harder by fires than smaller ones. Maybe this is not correct but if fire is based on your total HP bar then fires would deal tremendous damage to the ship as tonnage values go up.

What I can tell you is that in times past it was possible to build one expensive BB that was able to kill 30-50 ships all by itself and take no more than 5-10% damage. This was possible as soon as you started a campaign and had about 10 years of research without using the research vials.

I think the devs really didn't like that one bit. You can see even recently in the patch notes there was a notice about players building "OP Battleships".

[MasterFool]

"Pocket Battleships" (Panzershifs) weren't actually Battleship hulls but are regularly argued as either Battlecruisers or Fast Heavy Cruisers with large guns. You can build each variant in late game and I do so. They make great Invade ships (commerce raiders) but late game only BC's are really good Protect ships (Anti-Commerce Raiders). Early game I use CL's for this and mid-game is dominated by Scout Cruisers doing this job.

Now, with that said, I'm missing the part where the game claims to be "Historically Accurate". UAD isn't a simulation of some war or Historic arena. It's Alternate History that seems to explore a "What if heavy gun ships were never made obsolete by Aircraft and Missiles?" scenario. In fact, if you are starting in 1890, none of the Naval treaties come into play so ships would never be burdened by the London/Washington treaties... etc.

It's also why I crack up every time someone wants to add Carriers and/or Missiles...

[Hidden Gunman]

Originally posted by MasterFool:

"Pocket Battleships" (Panzershifs) weren't actually Battleship hulls but are regularly argued as either Battlecruisers or Fast Heavy Cruisers with large guns. You can build each variant in late game and I do so. They make great Invade ships (commerce raiders) but late game only BC's are really good Protect ships (Anti-Commerce Raiders). Early game I use CL's for this and mid-game is dominated by Scout Cruisers doing this job.

Now, with that said, I'm missing the part where the game claims to be "Historically Accurate". UAD isn't a simulation of some war or Historic arena. It's Alternate History that seems to explore a "What if heavy gun ships were never made obsolete by Aircraft and Missiles?" scenario. In fact, if you are starting in 1890, none of the Naval treaties come into play so ships would never be burdened by the London/Washington treaties... etc.

It's also why I crack up every time someone wants to add Carriers and/or Missiles...

The Confederate States of America had a pedal powered submarine in the 1860's, and they aren't even in the game. My point being that games will have arbitrary limitations, even alternative reality games like this.

I agree with MF on the fire thing, I think we would be more aware of it if we had burning hulks rather than them sinking during the battle. One thing I've picked up on is the amount of times early era ships have flash fires and magazine explosions, well away from the original seat of a fire. The spread in poorly protected ships is fast and extensive now.

[MasterFool]

Well, the first combat submarine was the Turtle and it was used in the US Revolutionary war, so late 1770's. It's first and last foray into combat was foiled by trying to drill into the copper plated hull of the warship it attacked and failing to penetrate the thin sheet. I guess they were just missing high speed steel drill bit technology! Had it succeeded, can you imagine how history would have changed?!!

On the plus side, it did return from combat... unlike the CSS Hunley it was powered by human's cranking on a crankshaft, backbreaking work. However the Hunley did succeed in it's mission. Scratch one Union ship.

Did I miss where I said something about fire? I did in another thread but if I said something that can be construed that way here, I apologize for the vagueness, it's kind of late here and I'm old, so old that I played these games as large room floor sims, early on with chits, and later on with miniatures. An experience that I think most of the UAD players would never had the fun and frustration of doing. I also played them on early home computers in text only formats. So, for all it's flaws, UAD is still more advanced than those methods!

[Kuma]

Originally posted by hansandmg42:

Past 1930 battleships become ridiculously big without an ability to scale them down, like at least every nation should have 35-55k ton battleships or pocket battleships.
Building a super battleship should be an expensive one off prototype not the standard.

It is an alternative universe without aircraft carriers or missiles.

I believe the past 1930 battleships are based the German H class battleships. Hence the reason for 130,000 ton displacements and 20 inch guns.

H-44:
131,000 t Displacement
1,131 ft 11 in Length
169 ft Beam
41 ft 8 in Draft
8 × 50.8 cm 20 inch guns

[vanDyck]

The post H-39 BBs were only studies to see what you need for an BB able to face all threads. They were never ment to be build, and the H-39 class wasnt much better as the bismarck class.
There were also other supber-BBs alike projects, yamato of course and the "super yamato", the montana class are the one that come to my mind...

Just to show i like small, efficient designs, this is my smallest BB in service in my actual campaign (end of 1929), a small DN hull build just before it got obsolete, for my fleets stationed in smaller harbours:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3326160067

[Hidden Gunman]

Originally posted by MasterFool:

Well, the first combat submarine was the Turtle and it was used in the US Revolutionary war, so late 1770's. It's first and last foray into combat was foiled by trying to drill into the copper plated hull of the warship it attacked and failing to penetrate the thin sheet. I guess they were just missing high speed steel drill bit technology! Had it succeeded, can you imagine how history would have changed?!!

On the plus side, it did return from combat... unlike the CSS Hunley it was powered by human's cranking on a crankshaft, backbreaking work. However the Hunley did succeed in it's mission. Scratch one Union ship.

Did I miss where I said something about fire? I did in another thread but if I said something that can be construed that way here, I apologize for the vagueness, it's kind of late here and I'm old, so old that I played these games as large room floor sims, early on with chits, and later on with miniatures. An experience that I think most of the UAD players would never had the fun and frustration of doing. I also played them on early home computers in text only formats. So, for all it's flaws, UAD is still more advanced than those methods!

My bad, sorry...I meant Glythe.

You aren't the only old hand on the forums who crawled around on the floor moving counters and chits. I remember one game called seastrike that had a very well done card system for combat, and you crossed off damaged components on the ship counters with a chinagraph pencil.

[Lord of the Exiled Winks]

Originally posted by MasterFool:

"Pocket Battleships" (Panzershifs) weren't actually Battleship hulls but are regularly argued as either Battlecruisers or Fast Heavy Cruisers with large guns. You can build each variant in late game and I do so. They make great Invade ships (commerce raiders) but late game only BC's are really good Protect ships (Anti-Commerce Raiders). Early game I use CL's for this and mid-game is dominated by Scout Cruisers doing this job.

Now, with that said, I'm missing the part where the game claims to be "Historically Accurate". UAD isn't a simulation of some war or Historic arena. It's Alternate History that seems to explore a "What if heavy gun ships were never made obsolete by Aircraft and Missiles?" scenario. In fact, if you are starting in 1890, none of the Naval treaties come into play so ships would never be burdened by the London/Washington treaties... etc.

It's also why I crack up every time someone wants to add Carriers and/or Missiles...

"Pocket Battleships" is a media fabrication. It's not a real thing.

iirc, Germany classified Graf Spee and ilk as heavy cruisers, which is that they were. These cruisers were not even close in tonnage to a real battleship, and really should just be seen as heavily armed cruisers.

[vanDyck]

The orginal term in germany was "Panzerschiff" (armoured ship).

The limits they were built to was 10.000t displacement and 11" guns according to the control commision and the versailles treaty, germany was not part of the washington treaty until the treaty with GB in 1935.

They were build as replacement for old pre-dreadnoughts, and the type was called during evalution what type to build "ship of the line cruiser" (Linienschiffskreuzer). They were build to fight France mostly and guard the baltic sea entrances, their diesels were build in to have a ship thats ready quickly (no boilers to pre-heat), the range was a side effect making them great raiders.

According to the washington treaty, anything with bigger as 8" guns is a capital ship,
so they are and not cruisers. The treaty did not differ between BB and BC.

Stats - wise with:
11" mains, 6" secondaries, 4" heavy anti air guns they are more BBs as cruisers, cruisers had not much of secondaries the end 30s/40s.
With 26kts official max. speed, inoffically ca. 28kts, maybe 30 with a refit adding a bit of lenght, they are faster as the typical 1920s BB, so speed wise they are more of a BC.
Their displacement was ca. 12.000t-16.000t, the limit for CAs was 10.000t. Their armor was more cruiser alike. But a lot of late treaty cruisers were above the limited, the hipper class even more.

I would categorize them as (small) motor-driven battlecruisers.

Yes, they were re-categorized as CA, but thats just a name and does not change the characteristcs.
Ingame they are CAs, and maybe the reason for 11" guns available for CAs, represented by the german advanced armored cruiser hull.

[Lord of the Exiled Winks]

Originally posted by vanDyck:

The orginal term in germany was "Panzerschiff" (armoured ship).

The limits they were built to was 10.000t displacement and 11" guns according to the control commision and the versailles treaty, germany was not part of the washington treaty until the treaty with GB in 1935.

They were build as replacement for old pre-dreadnoughts, and the type was called during evalution what type to build "ship of the line cruiser" (Linienschiffskreuzer). They were build to fight France mostly and guard the baltic sea entrances, their diesels were build in to have a ship thats ready quickly (no boilers to pre-heat), the range was a side effect making them great raiders.

According to the washington treaty, anything with bigger as 8" guns is a capital ship,
so they are and not cruisers. The treaty did not differ between BB and BC.

Stats - wise with:
11" mains, 6" secondaries, 4" heavy anti air guns they are more BBs as cruisers, cruisers had not much of secondaries the end 30s/40s.
With 26kts official max. speed, inoffically ca. 28kts, maybe 30 with a refit adding a bit of lenght, they are faster as the typical 1920s BB, so speed wise they are more of a BC.
Their displacement was ca. 12.000t-16.000t, the limit for CAs was 10.000t. Their armor was more cruiser alike. But a lot of late treaty cruisers were above the limited, the hipper class even more.

I would categorize them as (small) motor-driven battlecruisers.

Yes, they were re-categorized as CA, but thats just a name and does not change the characteristcs.
Ingame they are CAs, and maybe the reason for 11" guns available for CAs, represented by the german advanced armored cruiser hull.

If you take it at its "true" loaded displacement of 16k tones, it would definitely have been a very heavy crusier lol.

The idea of a "Pocket battleship" however was never a reality, it was a term coined by the British media as a way of fear mongering. For instance, the Graf Spee really didn't have any of the capabilities of a full fledged battleship.

[vanDyck]

The hippers had around 18.500t fully loaded tonnage... an even heavier heavy cruiser.

Sure, if the germans would be able to build a comparable BB/BC on 1/3 of the tonnage...

[MasterFool]

We actually have quite a few propagandist terms that make it into real use. It's so common today that the entire English lexicon seems to be up for open modification into political use, Orwell would be proud!

So, if you want to say it's a made up phrase, sure, no problem there. I would point out that a term like "Battleship" could describe any ship of war, "a ship made for battle". The definitions of ship types is highly changeable and tied to eras in which the language was used. So in the era the term was used, media created or not, it referred to ships as have been laid out above. Trying to fit them into the modern naval lexicon is where all the debate seems to come up.

By the way, I'm only in the mid 1920's of my current campaign and my CA's are 15,000 tons now mounting 11"+ guns, more of them than the Graf Spee with better armor. Certainly Heavy, Heavy Cruisers. I have BC's as well, and can down size them to be close in tonnage, gun them similarly, armor them similarly, but they are even faster. So I can see some cross-over in the ship capabilities. The confusion between the types is understandable. The treaties tried to nail down definitions with tonnages, gun limits, etc. etc. and it failed miserably.

Several times ship types have crossed over definition wise. A modern 'Frigate' would out size any WWII Destroyer with ease and a modern Destroyer would be the same with WWII cruisers. So, trying to keep ships types of the past with ship types of now is a bit of a fools errand. Even in their own eras, definitions got swapped about. The British complained that calling the USS Constitution a 'Frigate' was all wrong. They had a point as tradition had them smaller and lower gunned, but the US used the ships as Frigates because they filled the role well, doing everything an old Frigate could do and more; thus the US had a right to 'improve' on the class and use the term.

I guess my point is, I try not to get too tied up in such labels. It's tiring and things evolve.