War Plan Orange: December Update Part I (NEW SCREENS 12/3/04!)

[Tankerace]

Screw the Kido Butai. Meet the US Pacific Fleet!




Talk about Jutlandesque Firepower....mwuahahahahahahahahahaha

[steveh11Matrix]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Screw the Kido Butai. Meet the US Pacific Fleet!

<CUT pictures>
Talk about Jutlandesque Firepower....mwuahahahahahahahahahaha

Only 9 BB? Pitiful.... [;)]
(The Grand Fleet - Just Jellicoe's units, ignoring Beatty's - had 24 BB and 3 BC, plus 8 AC, 12 LC and 50 DD.)

Of course, by 1922 things were different, at least in real life. But I can't speak for your - wonderful looking - WPO mod!

Steve.

[ZonkerHarris]

Looks like this will be a lot of fun to play with! But I'm going to mod this mod by using some custom side art for the Sopwith Camel:

[String]

gee.. those planes are gonna be real usefull i see

[Tankerace]

ORIGINAL: steveh11Matrix

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Screw the Kido Butai. Meet the US Pacific Fleet!

<CUT pictures>
Talk about Jutlandesque Firepower....mwuahahahahahahahahahaha

Only 9 BB? Pitiful.... [;)]
(The Grand Fleet - Just Jellicoe's units, ignoring Beatty's - had 24 BB and 3 BC, plus 8 AC, 12 LC and 50 DD.)

Of course, by 1922 things were different, at least in real life. But I can't speak for your - wonderful looking - WPO mod!

Steve.

Keep in mind this sis when war breaks out... Once the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, plus the never weres come in.... then it gets interesting.

[TIMJOT]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I put the British ships in, because 1) I wanted to use them [;)], 2) I am going to include some what if scenarios detailing fleet actions between the Japanese and British, 3) I am planning 2 PBEM only Jutland scenarios, 1 variant US vs Japan, the other Britain vs Japan.

Ok I get it now. Dont get me wrong I am glad you are putting in the time to include them. In fact with your permision I would like to use your OOB and Artwork in a 1930s WPO Mod I plan on doing in the future. Again Great work!

Regards

[Tankerace]

Well, first off I want to say the community response to the "War Plan Orange: Announcement" Thread has been phenominal.

Well, I was working on the mod, and I was trying to decide what to do about AK conversions. COnverting to ARs, ADs, and ASs are well and good, but AVs and MLEs weren't that common in the 1920s. What to do. Then I reread the thread about HMAS Australia, and one word in that thread gave me the idea: Kormoran. You guessed it! On both the Japanese and Allies side, when you convert a large AK you get Q ships! They are listed as AKs, but have a strong gun battery (The American example has 6 5"/51 Mk 7s) and depth charges. There are two kinds, that are basically the same. When you click convert to MLE, you get a variant with a Y gun. The Y gun throws DCs over the side, 2 at a time. If you click convert to seaplane tender (AV), you get a kind with 2 DC racks.

They are listed as AKs, so that if a sub attacks (thinking it is a standard merchie), it gets blown out of the water. It may even be able to fend off a lone destroyer in a night action. In a pinch, they could probably be used as convoy escorts, though for the most part they will still behave like transports.

So, the first WPO Q ship:

[Ron Saueracker]

Sneaky and fun!

[FDRLincoln]

Would a Q-ship be something we could work up with the editor and use in a regular scenario, or is this something that requires modifications to the code itself?

[Tankerace]

All a Q ship is is a transport with guns on it. Other ships think its an AK, so that's how I'm trating it. The game and the enemy see it as an AK, but when a sub comes up to shoot it out, BLAMMO!

[FDRLincoln]

Yeah, I know what a Q-ship is.....just a cargo ship with extra weapons to trick the enemy into getting close. I just wondered if slapping extra guns on an AK would actually make it more aggressive when cornered as an actual Q-ship would be.

I ask this because last night I had Nagato and Mutso and accompanying destroyers run smack into an allied convoy at night near Rabaul. There were six or seven AKs and two destroyers. The destroyers were promptly sunk, but one of the AKs (before she sank) actually got off a couple of shots with her guns (4inch I think) that actually hit Nagato and started a fire. That got me thinking about Q-ships this morning for my own mod, and lo-and-behold I find your comment in this thread today.

[Tankerace]

It propably won't be aggressive per say, however it would do like a WWI Q ship, in the sense of luring subs to the surface, and engaging them. as to merchant raiding, I'm not to sure how good that would be.

[FDRLincoln]

I suppose you could invent a ship class "armed merchant raider", slap a bunch of guns on an AK, use the editor to tag it in the database as a CA or CL, so that it would be eligible for surface combat, and use it to hunt for enemy convoys and such without raising too many suspicions, at least early in the game before there is lots of air search going on. I might try that.

[Tankerace]

It could work like that, as an AMC, but not as a Q ship. For a Q ship, you want it as an AK so the AI will think it is a standard merchie.

Plus, if the game thinks an AMC is a CA, it will soak up a lot of bombs and torps.

[FDRLincoln]

Right. I see what you mean for Q-ship duty or as convoy escorts. I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work.

But how can we get actual Armed Merchant Cruiser to go on a raiding mission like the Germans did? I think the Japanese tried this as well without much success. An armed AK/Qship won't go on a surface combat mission, so I think you'd have to make the game think it was a CL or something so it would be eligibile.

I guess what i'm talking about are two different things here, a Q-ship for convoys and an AMC for raiding.

[Tankerace]

I think a CL designation wouldn't be to bad, but it will still suffer air attack. I don't think in game terms you can accurately do an AMC. From the air, an AMC would look like a standard merchie, but in game they'll think its a real cruiser.

[FDRLincoln]

You're probably right. If it is tagged as warship the computer will see it as a bigger threat than they would in real life and react accordingly.

Of course, real AMCs in WW2 weren't that successful because they were usually identified as such, so maybe this isn't really that much of a problem. Early in the war allied air search isn't that great anyhow. I'll play with it and see what i can come up with.

[FDRLincoln]

Hey, check out this link:

http://home.wxs.nl/~jviss000/battle_ondina.html


About a battle between two Japanese AMCs and a tanker and minesweeper. Enough stuff here to mod these ships.

[Tankerace]

bump to get away form evil number. [:D]