Lexington Class CC - Allied players beware!

[Tankerace]

Thought I'd post this little snippet as I work on the OOB of the Plan Orange Mod. A lot of people have been wanting the Lexington class CCs in, but the Allied player will have to use them carefully, or the Japanese player will get a lot of VPs!

First, a little bit of specifications, on how she will appear in the game.

Main armament: 8 16"/50 Mk 1 guns in 4 twin turrets
Secondary Armament: 16 6/53 Mk 14 guns in casemates and open mounts
AA Armament: 4 3"/50 Mk 11 AA Guns, 2 AA Machine guns
Torpedoes: 4 21" Mk 8 Torpedo tubes, 2 on each sides

Belt armor 7 inches
Deck Armor 4 inches

Speed: 33 knots

The Lexington is best compared with HMS Hood (and in the mod her 3 sisters), as they are closely related in size. In effect, both are near about the same size, but the Lexington is a knot faster. However, this is gained by extremely thin armor. HMS Hood has a 12" belt, and only a 3" deck armor. While the "Lady Lex" has more vertical protection, her belt is almost HALF as thick. If during a PBEM a Japanese player's dreadnoughts can catch these ships unawares, there could be a Jutland in the Pacific.

Does this mean that they are worthless? No. What it means is that, in the spirit of the mod, the player(s) will have two choices of play. You can play as was planned, and use BCs as scouts, or play like at Jutland and use BCs as BBs. Of course, if you do the latter, then Jutland can happen again.

Just a preview of things to come.

[Ron Saueracker]

And how would you have the CCs behave as scouts or behave as BBs,or any other variances between ship types? No matter what one attempts, if any ship meets another ship, there is no real maneuvering going on, where a ship with superior speed maintains the enemy out of range, breaks or rejoins contact etc. No cause and effect. Range is one dimensional and the battle is much like a Napoleonic naval line of battle slugging match.

[Tankerace]

Lol. What I meant is simply if don't use them as your heavist ships in a battle. Use them (if possible) against cruisers, but don't try to purposely throw them at Japanese Tosas or Nagatos. Of course I do realize that this will be hard to model, considering that WiTP handles all of the TF controls abstractly. Still, I just thought I'd put out some warning, if you thought the Hood was fraile... [;)]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Lol. What I meant is simply if don't use them as your heavist ships in a battle. Use them (if possible) against cruisers, but don't try to purposely throw them at Japanese Tosas or Nagatos. Of course I do realize that this will be hard to model, considering that WiTP handles all of the TF controls abstractly. Still, I just thought I'd put out some warning, if you thought the Hood was fraile... [;)]

My favourite term used to describe battlecruisers not built in the Kaiser's yards was "eggshells armed with hammers."

[Tankerace]

Mwahahahaha, so true to. "Speed=Protection"= 3 battlecruisers blowing up in 30 minutes.

The concept was good, but execution was horrible.

[Sneer]

Without strong air forces - scouting + shipping lanes harassment will be more important and enemy met during this tasks will be cruisers at most
what is Lex endurance in this model ?
does it allow for long journeys?

[Tankerace]

I haven't found her exact endurance yet, still doing research on that. However, I know for a fact it should be around at least 1.5 times that of US dreadnoughts. Most dreadnoughts (as taken from Jane's Fighting Ships of WWI) have a radius of action of usually no more than 10,000 miles, and that is at 12 knots. So for a cruise of 14-15 knots, it is considerably less. I expect the Lexington to have around 14-16,000 mile radius of action. I want to do more research before I say for certain though.

Sneer, I'm glad you brought up commerce raiding. That too will be a major focal point of the mod. With few Pacific bases, and coal fired ships (some oil fired) with small radii of action, merchant shipping will be the life blood of both sides (not just the Japanese anymore). And with few, ineffective submarines, battle and protected cruisers acting as merchant raiders will be the weapon of choice. At least (in a PBEM anyway) half of the game will be spent doing commerce raids on your opponets ships, and using your Battlecruisers and dreadnoughts to sink his commerce raiders. Very fun indeed!

[Zeta16]

Won't commerce raiding be hard since there are no mid-ocean intercepts? How are you going to take this into account.

[Tankerace]

There are mid ocean intercepts, the are just very rare. Basically, I'm falling ove rthat bridge as I come to it. I expect it will mostly be luck (as it historically was), plus a little bit of guess work. If you set a home base of your commerce raider next to where you think covoys will pass, and then set a max react, you can expect better esults. However, I'll be dealing with this more in depth one I get to the testing phase.