Alternate WNT Scenarios (v11 Released)

[Akos Gergely]

Well done on the artwork! I would gladly help you out but what I have is more BigB and fremen style than AEish (though they look seriously cool).

I'm really looking forward to both versions of your mods, I only regret that you omitted the South Dakota class on the USN side, but it's understandible.

Do you plan to change the lesser ships as well (ie CAs, CLs)?

I'm still toying with the idea of doing an INSANE (trademark by Terminus) BB version with all the goodies (that is lots and lots of 16"-18" gunned monsters that were planned) just for fun. Also I'd change the rather boring USN linup of Clevelend-Baltimore ships with some design variants that were seriously contemplated IRL.

BTW there was a Montana class preliminary design, BB-65-8 that fits in nicely with your Illinois class.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s511-13.jpg

[Historiker]

One idea I did have was make the extensive (Ise/Fuso fast BB conversions, ect) require, say, 150 repair yard size. This way, if the player wants to do this, he would have to invest supplies in increasing the capacity of his repair yards before he can do that (Largest Japanese is ~100 right now).

Two men, one thought... I had that idea, too. But as conversions still cost nothing, don't even block the repair shipyard and as the big yard will be usefull anyway (I always expand one shipyard as much as possible), I'd propose an increase of conversion time. This may reflect something like "They just work on the ship when nothing else is to do" or "They work on the ship in their sparetime" - something not unlikely if happend for the beloved Tenno [;)]

Another option is the introduction of House Rules. A repair shipyard has to have the size xy for a conversion and as long as its under way, the repair shipyard mustn't repair anything else. The Jap player can do this now, thanks to the new repair system.

My idea of allowing any possible ship convert to a CV/CVL/CVE might work this way without turning the balance too enormous.

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: csatahajos

I'm really looking forward to both versions of your mods, I only regret that you omitted the South Dakota class on the USN side, but it's understandible.

Do you plan to change the lesser ships as well (ie CAs, CLs)?

I may do a BB Variant that has the USN going with a pair of South Dakotas instead of the Lexingtons, but that will have to wait for later. Would definately mean the IJN is gonna have an inferiority complex for the 30's.

The CA/CL builds have changed, though not too drastically. The IJN sees the biggest changes, especially in the CV Variant. For the others there are more cruisers all around, and some larger designs during wartime.

BTW there was a Montana class preliminary design, BB-65-8 that fits in nicely with your Illinois class.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s511-13.jpg

Thanks very much for this, its a nice confirmation that the numbers I had for my design were pretty good. Though this one is 10ft longer, so even more out of scale with the rest of the art.

[Historiker]

IJN is gonna have an inferiority complex for the 30's.

A good explanation if you want to use one of my "add turrets or armour later" tricks. In this case, the IJN might have really thought about doing so.

On the other hand: You are right not to listen to my proposal of reducing the last 4 battleships.
From the time on when the IJN had the money to order ships without haveing to by the remnents of others, it always intended to have a ship that's superior to the contemporary ships of other nations. So in a BB scenario, there's a good justification to stay with slower but more powerful designs. let's just hope that the IJN has a plan how to handle the faster british ships [;)] Maybe Über-CAs?

One of things possible - no matter whether in which version - is the design of CAs with tripple or quadruple 20,3cm guns that can be replaced by double or tripple 28cm. This would be one possible measure to strengthen the firepower against greater enemy BB forces. Whether or not this fits in your plan - I can't decide.

Anyway, great work so far! [&o]

[JuanG]

In the BB and CV variants, the IJN currently stays with its dual 20cm turrets. I did consider the idea of the Nachis being built with 3x3x8, and how that would affect later designs, but shelved the idea for now.

The idea of the IJN using the wonderful german 28cm gun is one thing I've toyed with for a long time. Personally I think their best use would be in a B-65 type Super Cruiser, maybe armed with up to 12x11 guns. This thing should shred cruisers, and do a number of battleships in a close up fight.

Unfortunately, apart from purchasing the 37mm AA from the germans in the mid-30s, none of the scenarios right now feature buying a liscense for the 28cm, so it would have to be in a new setting entirely.

Maybe something to consider once the current work is done.


Here a nice drawing of a 'complete' 65-8 design, roughly what my Illinois will look like;
http://www.wolfsshipyard.mystarship.com/Misc/NeverWeres/BB65_8.jpg

[Historiker]

The gun is rather old, first version from somewhere in the 20th IIRC (don't have the necessary book here). So there's plenty of time to adopt it. The Nanchis then equipped with 3x2x28cm might be a nasty thing to any enemy cruiser [;)].
The german 3,7cm? Wouldn't it have been a better choice to send 10kg of gold to the Japanese ambassador in Sweden and let him show up with that at Bofors?
Was there any 3,7cm mount higher than 2? I don't think so but a 4x40mm Bofors is ugly!

If you want to improve them further, they might have asked in the late 20th/early 30th for the 7,62cm design of Rheinmetall. Pak, Flak and Artillery in one...

[JuanG]

The 28cm/54.5 SK C/34 used on the Scharnhorst dates from 1934. The shorter 28cm/52 SK C/28 used on the Graf Spee and sisters dates from 1928. Both were nice weapons.

Im not sure how easily the Japanese could have acquired the Bofors before the war, however the German 3.7cm/83 should not be a problem. With some redesign, possibly in paralell with the Kreigsmarine, an automatic version can be developed.

I dont plan on mounting them in more than twos, as loading gets complicated with a larger mount.

It also means that while the Japanese AA is better in the Enhanced than the normal scenarios, its still not as good as the allies with Bofors. More comparable to something between the 1.1in and the 2pdr.

The Japanese dont really need a new 'light' DP gun, their own 8cm/40 is decent, and the 8cm/60 from the late 30s is a good weapon.

[Historiker]

wasn't bofors selling it to everyone interested?

The rest is reasonable (at least to witp terms) and I'm really looking forward to play your mod. I hope that some of my ideas have found your interest.
How long does it take you to design a shipmodel?

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

wasn't bofors selling it to everyone interested?

The rest is reasonable (at least to witp terms) and I'm really looking forward to play your mod. I hope that some of my ideas have found your interest.
How long does it take you to design a shipmodel?

As in the artwork, or running some numbers and getting a feel for whats reasonable for a design?

For a art, it depends on how different it is to existing stuff - the ones I fear most are the RN J3 and F3 designs, aswell as all the navies 30's stuff. The Japanese stuff so far were pretty easy, and so was the Lex. It takes me anywhere from 20 minutes (Harima) to around 2 hours (Lex) so far. I anticipate spending around 4 on the harder stuff...

For designs, it varies. I have a good feel for Japanese and USN designs, so I can guess reasonably, and then I'll run it through SpringStyle and SpringSharp and a spreadsheet of my own to check numbers. And then throw in a little extra weight, and see how it compares to existing and planned designs. Anything from half to one and a half hours, depending on if I've got anything like it from the past in archive.


I'll definately keep your ideas in mind, and the same for everyone elses. But as I've said before, your suggestions really fit best with the spirit of the CV variant or a new 'balanced' one.

And I have no idea who Bofors was selling to, I'll do some research. Maybe the IJN will be toting 40mm afterall.

[Historiker]

As in the artwork, or running some numbers and getting a feel for whats reasonable for a design?

I don't understand that.

[JuanG]

You asked how long it took to make a shipmodel. I wasnt sure if you meant editing the artwork, or actually coming up with the ship class itself - guns, armour, speed/endurance values and so on.

[Akos Gergely]

Probably not the most professional solution but why don't you just use existing artwork to speed up things? I mean do the programming of the ship classes etc and do the separate upgrades for them then later on you can put in the artwork stuff. I've msoat of what you need from Fremen and BigB and Dixie, though not AE style that's true.

Sorry I'm just too eager to give it a try [&o]

[Historiker]

I ment the artwork.

But I'm also interested how you calculate your ships. When I asked for a faster Yamato, you've written:

A 30 knot design would look like this;

980ft x 115ft x 35ft
63,100t standard
71,000t full load

4 x 3 x 16in/50 - two fore, two aft, superfiring
2 x 3 x 5.5in/60 - two on ends, superfiring as in Yamato
4 x 2 x 5.5in/60 - two per side
8 x 2 x 5in/40 - four per side, elevated as in Yamato

Belt - 14in (355mm)
Deck - 7.5in (190mm)
Turrets - 20.5in (520mm)
Tower - 18.1in (460mm)

Speed - 30.3 knots @ 175,000hp
Range - 11,500nm @ 15 knots using 7,150tons of fuel

So yes, my estimate of it being comparable in size to the historical Yamato is correct.

Was that an existing plan or how have you calculated it? I'm totally incompetent in this part, so I'm keen to learn. [:)]

[steveh11Matrix]

I strongly suggest you get hold of Springsharp: http://www.springsharp.com/ and design your ships using that. The 3.03 beta is stable and creates good design data that can be transferred to the WitpEditor well.

Be wary of such things as switching out 8" guns for 11" ones, ar just "adding another turret" as has been suggested here. I think a Naval Architect might fall over laughing at the second, while the first is certainly possible (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were, as I understand it, meant to have a similar conversion for larger guns) but it plays havoc with ship trim and seaworthiness if not correctly set up.

Steve.

[Historiker]

A ship prepared for that can fire 28cm guns without damage even when just around 10.000ts. While Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were in fact NOT prepared by design for the 38cm guns, this can be done when designing a totally new Cruiser.
Adding 28cm guns - and a lot of them - to an existing unprepared will cause a lot of trouble, though...

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: steveh11Matrix

I strongly suggest you get hold of Springsharp: http://www.springsharp.com/ and design your ships using that. The 3.03 beta is stable and creates good design data that can be transferred to the WitpEditor well.

Be wary of such things as switching out 8" guns for 11" ones, ar just "adding another turret" as has been suggested here. I think a Naval Architect might fall over laughing at the second, while the first is certainly possible (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were, as I understand it, meant to have a similar conversion for larger guns) but it plays havoc with ship trim and seaworthiness if not correctly set up.

Steve.

Springsharp is one of the tools I use, though I would strongly suggest sticking to Version 2, as version 3 is just a 'tad' optimistic in my experience.

The suggestion of 'adding a turret' to an existing hull is an absurd one, but building a ship with an extra barbette and then decking it over and ballasting the ship, and then later uncovering it and installing said turret, isnt so outrageous. It obviously works best with turrets closer to the center of the ship, but with appropriate planning it should be possible.

Weather I use it remains debateable.

[Historiker]

You can put a hangar over the barbette, then it isn't so obvious that there's some unnecessary space to wonder about.

BTW: The barbettes of the Scharnhost had to be strengthend before adding the 38cm turret. The diameter was enough but not the barbette itself - as it was NOT anticipated from the start to change the main armement. If this were so, it would've been an easy job to design the ship in this way.

The suggestion of 'adding a turret' to an existing hull is an absurd one, but building a ship with an extra barbette and then decking it over and ballasting the ship, and then later uncovering it and installing said turret, isnt so outrageous. It obviously works best with turrets closer to the center of the ship, but with appropriate planning it should be possible.´

The lower ship of your profile might be a candidate with the center turret. Putting a hangar over a prepared barbette wouldn't surprise too much - maybe just encourage the thinking of poor Japanese designers...

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: csatahajos

Probably not the most professional solution but why don't you just use existing artwork to speed up things? I mean do the programming of the ship classes etc and do the separate upgrades for them then later on you can put in the artwork stuff. I've msoat of what you need from Fremen and BigB and Dixie, though not AE style that's true.

If you want to post or send me artwork that might be suitable, you're free to do so. If nothing else, it will reduce the time I need to work on creating my own ones if I have something as a guide.

I will probably atleast finish the artwork for BB/CV in an AE-like style before I release however.

[Akos Gergely]

E-mail sent to you Sir!

[JuanG]

Thanks again for the art, some beautiful work in there that works good as a reference.

Heres BB Sagami, the 1931 Kongo 'replacement' - sorry for the low quality, cant get onto ImageShack for whatever reason;





Quality FIXED!