Reluctant Admiral 4.1

[John 3rd]

Well...we choose to build them with 12 6" guns. What did you find Stanislav?

[John 3rd]

Just read Stanislav's notes in my email. FatR could you please Post them here and we'll see what discussion spawns from it.

Changes could easily be implemented into the March 42 RA Variant...

[John 3rd]

Cavalry spotted the Agano Class having one set of Torps firing only to the REAR. CRAP! Fixed. RA 5.1 sent to FatR.

[Cavalry Corp]

And the Maya? In my game with Dan it has no further upgrade path?

[John 3rd]

In my 5.0 files--just checked--Maya has the upgrade path for up to 4 upgrades. Can you Post a screenshot?

[John 3rd]

Here she starts in Formosa:

[John 3rd]

Clicked the Upgrade and get this:

[John 3rd]

Post a screenshot with what you are getting.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Cavalry spotted the Agano Class having one set of Torps firing only to the REAR. CRAP! Fixed. RA 5.1 sent to FatR.

That's actually not our doing. That's how Agano class always was in stock. Although from the position of accuracy this probably should be fixed, maybe devs had motives for this positioning?

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Just read Stanislav's notes in my email. FatR could you please Post them here and we'll see what discussion spawns from it.

Sorry, had more problems.

First thing:

AAA issue. I'm a bit frightened by the boost that extra ammo seems to gives to the naval flak even in the earliest versions of RA. By early 1944 losses from flak alone to Japanese 1E planes can approach or even exceeed 40% of a raid against a carrier airgroup. I've lost more Jills to flak than to AtA at the moment. Considering that in 1945 Allied flak makes another leap and that the latest versions of RA have both improved flak from DaBabes and extra ammunition, the end consequences might be very unpleasant.

Japanese naval flak, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be overtly powerful even with all the 100/65 Type 98 guns arouns. It seems to produce surprisingly good result when skipbombing attackers run into some large warships, but against normal torpedo and divebombers it's still at nuisance level, and the Allies can expect to exchange about 3 carrier planes for a battlecruiser plus some lesser targets...

On the other hand, powerful flak might be one bright spot for my opponent in the face of the fact that by 4/1944 Allies still have large problems seizing air superiority against a mix of Franks/Georges (up to N1K5-J at the moment)/Sams (Tojos and A6M8s sort of suck now, can't rely on them too much). Things are going to be even bleaker for the Allies as Ki-84r and A7M3 are going to appear in mid-1944, with projected production of over 300 each. As a result, unless a player has a really good plan for the day, we still can fight each other to a draw in the air. Which means Allied TFs regularly get pounded during offensive attempts. IJN isn't safe either, but it mostly doesn't need to come to the enemy.

If anyone has an experience with playing RA into late war, any comments on the game balance at that stage would be much appreciated here.

[FatR]

Another note on Agano-class cruisers...

1)At this stage we might as well call it Oyodo-class, because the armament is almost that of Oyodo built as a normal CL.

2)This raises a couple questions, first of them is the price. There are now 8 of them in the construction queue and available at the start. Agano was a very budget cruiser, save for its flak guns - gunhouses instead of true turrets, and with two barrels instead of planned three, reusal of old 152mm guns, a relatively simple protections scheme (with no antitorpedo protection, although it is not clear if said protection on Oyodo was of any use, she was done for by near misses and beached due to a near miss before that) and powerplant. Oyodo reused old guns too, but otherwise was more expensive. Speaking of that, 8 cruisers in their current shape will need 72 155mm guns, but only 36 were built for Mogamis.

3)Even if we get around price and lack of suitable shipyards (the latter can be circumvented by planning and starting the construction earlier, I think), I'm not sure if it is technically possible to place torpedo mounts on centerline in an Oyodo-style hull, that has enough space for 100mm flak guns. It is 1.4m wider.

4)Tactical function. Original Aganos were built to replace obsolete (and increasingly decrepit) 5500-ton cruisers as destroyer leaders. For their small displacement (slightly more than half of a Cleveland) they were adequate (we, Jap players, primarily think they suck because in the stock we just get too few ships in all, and when our ships can't go against the most common Allied ones one on one this seems an insult to injury) and sufficiently simple to be constructed in wartime. I'm not sure they were worth the investment of men and materials, though. Their size was inadequate for placing sufficient medium-calibre AA armament and they were about as vulnerable as DDs to torpedo hits. Building moderately powerful light cruisers like the Swiftsure class (and maximally powerful battleships/battlecruisers) is arguably the best course of action post-treaties, interbellum CAs just ended up an attept to create pseudo-battleships on limited displacement. So technically what is present in RA as the Agano class is not far from optimum (assuming technical and industrial vialbility, which I doubt above). But what was rationalization for that?

This is not a call for any immediate changes... rather a material for discussion, maybe.


P.S.: On a brighter note, I learned that my earlier doubts about placing so many Type 98 twins everywhere were unfounfed. An open mount, like those employed on RL Oyodo, has almost exactly the same weight as a 127/40 Type 89 mount.

[bigred]

If anyone has an experience with playing RA into late war, any comments on the game balance at that stage would be much appreciated here.

FatR is having too much fun...[:D]

[John 3rd]

What would you do for a Japanese version of the Swiftsure class?

[John 3rd]

Here are the details of that class:


Class and type: Minotaur-class light cruiser
Name: HMS Swiftsure
Builder: Vickers Armstrong at Newcastle-on-Tyne

General characteristics
Displacement: 8,800 tons standard
11,130 tons full
Length: 555.5 ft (169.3 m)
Beam: 63 ft (19 m)
Draught: 17.25 ft (5.26 m)
Propulsion: Four Admiralty-type three drum boilers. Four shaft Parsons steam turbines 72,500 shp
Speed: 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h)
Range: 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) at 30 knots (60 km/h)
8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h); 1,850 tons fuel oil
Complement: 867

Armament:
Three triple BL 6 inch Mk XXIII naval guns
Five dual QF 4 inch Mark XVI guns HA
Four quad 2 pdr
Six single 40 mm AA
Two triple 21-inch (530 mm) Torpedo Tubes.

Armour:
3.25 to 3.5-inch (89 mm) belt
2 inch deck
1 to 2-inch (51 mm) turrets
1.5 to 2-inch (51 mm) bulkheads

[John 3rd]

If you go by the recylced idea then the 5 6" Triples taken off of the 4 Mogami Class provide 20 Turrets.

We build Yamato and Musashi yielding 8 of those 20.

Twelve left would provide us 4 3 Triple Turret CLs. We could CALL these the Agano's.

Any turrets after that require building more...

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
What would you do for a Japanese version of the Swiftsure class?

Either this:


10x152mm
8x76mm
12x25mm (initially)
8x610mm tordedoes (no reloads)
1 floatplane (maybe switch it for torpedo reloads?)

or this:

9x155mm
12x100mm
12x25mm (initially)
8x610mm torpedoes (with reloads) (It seems my worries about centerline TT placements were unfounded)
2 floatplanes
General data as for RL Oyodo class (note that Oyodo still had a significant reserve of stability even after late-war modernizations, that's why so many 100/65 twins)

Concepts and images (c) Eugen Pinak.

The first project is cheaper and more suitable for mass production, but requires research of a new AA gun and most likely of a new AP shell for the 152mm gun (it only had HE shells IRL, just like Japanese DD guns, so that's why it has unusually low penetration in AE) and is also less powerful. The second is more complex, but more potent.

Tactical/conceptual niche: the first project is a mega-leader, capable of taking on Two Oceans' Navy's cruisers in night combat during the night phase of the Decisive Battle (tm). It is more or less with the RL Improved Agano project, except with more armament and more realistic speed requirements.

The second project is an all-purpose light cruiser, capable of leading destroyers in night attacks, providing anti-air defense for carrier divisions and long-distance raiding (instead of building dedicated CLAAs, which Japanese wanted, but never got to building). Again, is primarily supposed to tackle its USN counterparts in night combat. Although it can stand up to British cruisers in day battles too.

In either case, drafting the plans begins as soon as the decision to leave the treaties is made, so construction is started before 1940. Won't judge how many of either can be build under the new RA vision...

[Cavalry Corp]

John,

I cannot get a screen shot i tried to do it with windows snip...but alas.

I can tell you I did the first upgrade but there is no more - all the others are ok. I can also tell you that the Maya is listed in your shot as Maya class but its Takao? Doe that make any difference.

should I send you the game so you can see what it looks like in Sept42 anyway?

cav

[John 3rd]

Cavalry: Email sent to you.

FatR: Mighty interesting. These were actual Japanese blueprints/designs? Hmmm...

I like the 2nd class a lot. Would those turrests be the cast-offs from the Mogami's? The 3.9" would already be in production...

The first design with the 76mm harkens back to the original designs. Those twin Turrets---could they be the conventional DD Turrets and become more of a Dido-Class?

[John 3rd]

Tracked down some of Pinak's work and discussion boards. They are FASCINATING! Have some reading to do...

[John 3rd]

Tracked down the Maya issues that Cavalry is writing about. For some reason Maya was set to her own set of upgrades from when FatR and I were bouncing CA ideas around A LONG TIME AGO! Am not changing this yet on the RA Site due to looking for other issues...