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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[evictedSaint]

And if we make them hardy enough to survive crashing, then not even shooting them down will save them from our soldiers might

[stabbymcstabstab]

And if we make them hardy enough to survive crashing, then not even shooting them down will save them from our soldiers might

It's equipment design to be operated by Fornieans, it's pretty safe to say it's more rugged than your average piece of equipment, or i guess you could go with getting your last rights before you go near it like most of our navy, aircraft, armored vehicles, etc.

[evictedSaint]

Yeah...our DD's are floating coffins at the moment. 100% mortality rate. : (

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Yeah...our DD's are floating coffins at the moment. 100% mortality rate. : (

...*facepalm*

We forgot to put life boats on all our ships.

[stabbymcstabstab]

Yeah...our DD's are floating coffins at the moment. 100% mortality rate. : (

...*facepalm*

We forgot to put life boats on all our ships.

We should revise them one day, with possible armor, lifeboats, better guns, maybe not forcing the crew on board at gunpoint...

[Chiefwaffles]

Real Forenian ships use bodies as armor. Even in death, you will still serve the nation.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Yeah...our DD's are floating coffins at the moment. 100% mortality rate. : (

...*facepalm*

We forgot to put life boats on all our ships.

We should revise them one day, with possible armor, lifeboats, better guns, maybe not forcing the crew on board at gunpoint...

Design transport plane, revise boats?

[VoidSlayer]

How about designing a transport submarine?

[RAM]

I would expect them to be initially expensive but cheap in the long-run, due to fewer losses than boats and lower operating costs than aeroplanes. It should be pretty easy to get much more capacity than an aeroplane, but I wouldn't expect them to reach the same depth that a military submarine could hope for without raising the costs and dropping the capacity to a point that they wouldn't really be viable as a resource transport.

I would expect them to be pretty much incapable of interrupting the supply lines. Unless we send them in a direct line between ports it would be searching with sonar and periscope-spotting over a massive area. Blockades would work against them, to some extent, as would raids against the loading sites, but in the open seas they should be pretty much invisible, even if they can't defend themselves if they are ever spotted.

I do like the idea very much, especially as it lays the groundwork for carrier subs...

[Azzuro]

The Yamato was sunk by a fleet of carriers, a very large fleet of carriers, and had a tiny fleet with it. That is more an example of uneven forces than mismatched forces. Carriers are not invulnerable, even when fighting from outside of enemy range, they require aircraft to do so, aircraft can be damaged or destroyed. A depleted carrier may be cheaper to restore than a damaged-or-destroyed battleship, but it is a cost none-the-less and the ship is still out-of-action... Add to that the higher running costs(I am assuming here) and battleships start to look more favourable, provided that they do not sink.

It seems to me that there is still a role for a battleship, just not one of dominance. A ship with, say, 4 three-hundred-and-sixty millimetre guns, spread over two turrets, could still discourage smaller ships from approaching even though it would not be suited to defeating a battleship in a duel, while hosting far more antiaircraft fire(or facilities to increase its agility...), including shrapnel rounds from its main guns that could outrange anything the aircraft could do, although would likely do little more than disrupt formations and flight-paths... Meanwhile it could wear the same armour that takes dozens of direct hits from aircraft to overcome while mounted on the least-desirable location for aircraft to approach. a particularly ambitious designer might even try to add some sort of docking facilities for extremely light craft that could sortie with sonar against submarines while this 'escort battleship' provides resupply and poor-weather protection that would normally render such light vessels impractical in open seas...

Note also that our carriers are light, only, what, 20 aircraft? I would not expect them to defeat an unescorted battleship one-on-one, and the sort of fleets that were being hurled around the pacific could probably withstand a dozen of them with negligible losses. Which exposes another flaw of the carrier. If a carrier is overwhelmed, it is pretty much useless. While the sip itself is almost defenceless, its aircraft are prone to being overwhelmed too. If five fighters and five torpedo-planes encounter 10 fighters, then they are very unlikely to so much as scratch an enemy ship. The great carrier victories tend to rely upon enough forces to effectively keep their opponent busy, at least temporarily. If the enemy can field twice as many fighters in defence as you can when attacking, than you are basically irrelevant, while a battleship can still pose a threat and force a response if it advances on something sensitive.

Carriers are definitely good, no mistake, but it seems foolish to ignore a combined-arms approach, and a battleship carriers a lot of stopping-power and hard-point that carriers are largely bereft of.

I'm not sure whether you're referring to in-game or historical in this post, but I'll address both.

Historically, you'll have to provide evidence that carriers were more expensive than battleships in WWII. The fundamental reason for "carriers-obsoleted-battleships" is that aircraft have far longer range than any naval gun, and battles were conducted at this range, the first of which was Coral Sea. Your escort battleship would do better removing its big guns and being converted into an escort carrier, which can outrange any non-carrier and thus do a better job deterring other ships, or removing its big guns and converting into an anti-air cruiser, to be more cost-effective at anti-air defence. Shrapnel shells aren't anywhere near as effective as actual AA guns in this time period either. And I'm not sure what armour can withstand 'dozens of direct hits from aircraft', given that the ultra-heavy (and ultra-expensive) battleship, Yamato, was sunk by less than a dozen torpedoes and half-dozen bombs. For the anti-submarine role, destroyers are far more cost-effective: if I have even two destroyers for a battleship I'm already covering more search area with sonar. Overall, the escort role is better filled by cheap destroyers or submarines, which only need to see the enemy coming at sufficient distance from the main force and warning the carriers to deploy a counterstrike.

I'll grant you that an overwhelmed battleship can still do better than an overwhelmed carrier, but only on the defence (see how quickly Soryu, Akagi and Kaga were crippled). On the attack however, a battleship attacking any enemy concentration with aircraft (either carrier or land-based) will be hammered without being able to fire back at the source, perhaps for hours, perhaps fatally. In this situation, a battleship would do no better than an outclassed aircraft carrier.

In-game, and meta-game, I am strongly strongly against any attempt to go down the big guns route to try and match the Cannalan navy. They have quite a significant lead over us in this aspect, and should they see us trying to do so, will devote designs to maintaining said lead and rendering our efforts useless. And as has already been pointed out, we have lucked out as our carriers are merely Expensive, and will become Cheap when we absorb Myark.

Anyway, transport-wise I would prefer flying boats, which aren't quite so vulnerable to Cannalan naval dominance as surface ships or submarines, although they still won't be able to hold as much cargo.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

How about designing a transport submarine?

Bad idea.  Would override the existing transportation capacity of our existing supply ship, and would then be cut in half due to their advantage in the sea, meaning we would need to build one with at least a capacity of 3.  With planes, we would get a Transportation Capacity in the area we don't currently have one and the air transport capacity was confirmed by Sensei to not be affected by naval advantage, meaning we only need to have a TC of 1 for the plane, and we may be able to push that up to a TC of 2, giving us a bit of room (note: not referring to the Jungle with this.  If we capture the Jungle, Sensei has said that would use our currently unused land transport capacity).  Much easier than having to try and figure out how to build a sub with a capacity of 3.

[Azzuro]

What do you guys think of this:

UFAF-CT-38-1 "Albatross"
A four-engined transport and cargo aircraft with a 32-metre wingspan, its flight characteristics are optimised for fuel endurance and payload weight. It has a pressurised interior cabin capable of holding 5 tons of cargo, or a platoon of paratroopers, accessed mainly through a rear cargo ramp that can be lowered in flight. Four 14-cylinder radial engines turning four-bladed propellers produce the thrust necessary to get it airborne, fed by self-sealing fuel tanks that provide a measure of hardiness. It is designed to land only on Long runways with retractable landing gear, and carries no weapons to make it cheaper, instead relying on escorting fighters for defence if needed.


Projected expense will definitely fall within the Cheap range, while Difficulty might be Normal, as we're introducing a bunch of small improvements into one design (pressure cabin, more powerful engines, self-sealing fuel tanks).

Cons:
-no weapons, relies on our other fighters, and is pretty screwed if we can't maintain air superiority.
-can't be used on our carriers, obviously, though I don't think we were planning to anyway.
-can't be modified into a bomber with extensive redesign of the cargo bay into a bomb bay, so we'd be better off making a completely new bomber if needed. Although the four-engined aircraft experience gained here may help us in doing so.

[RAM]

My contention against the carrier is that it lacks stopping power and is prone to depletion. A battleship can carry a lot more shells than a carrier can, and won't be in a position where it can't launch enough shells to get through the enemy defence. Sometimes their new fighter will surprise you, sometimes they reposition their forces to overwhelm a theatre, Sometimes they have a new A.A. turret that tracks your aeroplanes better than they can evade... Sometimes your anti naval aeroplanes can't stop their boats... Sometimes you can't press an advantage because if you get too close you are toast, so you just have to sit by and watch them scamper away.

According to Wikipaedia, The Musashi took 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs(an even three dozen) and damage control efforts continued for almost four hours before she sank. While The Yamato was basically in a shooting gallery, all attacks against only a single side of the vessel. It is the worse example. I do not have data on running costs but I cannot fathom that the costs of a battleship that floats at, say, 40 knots, is going to compare to a scout cap, flying, at five times that speed. Battleships and carriers both have heavy machinery and light machinery, but carriers require maintenance for numerous fighters, which is technical work, and have frequent use of lifts and such with very repetitive and ungainly vertical actions, along with odd bits and pieces like braking cables and aircraft conveyances. Battleships tend to have more stable circular actions for things like turrets. Certainly, when a battleship breaks down it is very expensive, but a carrier has its own share of expensive parts, and breakdowns seem morel likely given their engineering difficulty(circles are easy because motors make circles...). But history is not something that I am trying to argue here, as this is a game thread, so such things are not relevant except as illustrations of the game's hypothetical scenarios.

If the destroyers see the enemy then it is too late to launch a counterstrike. And I am not talking about carriers being personally overwhelmed and the ships being crippled, I am talking about carrier-launched aeroplanes being overwhelmed and unable to take action. Carriers have a clearly superior range and volume of force projection, and the advantage of scouting and attacking without revealing their position. I don't doubt that they are 'better' but there is still the issue that being able to throw actual shells at that distance would be more immediately threatening and more difficult to stop, as shells cannot be shot down and have a much higher velocity. Battleships DO have advantages and those advantages CAN find opportunities to present themselves. By all means the carriers should be the basis of fleet doctrine, but destroyers and carriers both lack the ability to stop a determined task-force of similar proportions from attacking them. A battleship can politely inform such a force that no amount of air cover in the world is going to stop a shell that is on course for their deck and that they really can't hope to see it prove ineffective as a battleship might against an air-dropped bomb. Just a handful of really big guns can turn a massacre into an orderly withdrawal or a harassment into a determined assault. Or it can turn that incident where an enemy destroyer-group or small force of aeroplanes finds you while your own aeroplanes are off doing something and your destroyers are forced to sit by and watch torpedoes sink your clumsy carriers or jump in front of them and get sunk themselves. A battleship can sink them from outside of torpedo range and shield a carrier with a somewhat decent chance of surviving.

We don't NEED battleships, but to consider them useless is, in my opinion, misguided.

As for submarines, I could se them gaining a bonus against naval advantage and if we are modest in our demands for dive-depths and agility then it should be possible to transport pretty much any tank or aircraft we would be likely to field, along with a chance to drop heavy land-forces undetected, for some of the advantage of a paradrop with much better equipment(Though the same crippling lack of support). Combine the two and you can drop paratroopers to take their airfields, sneak Tigers and heavy A.T. guns by sea to hold them, then land all the supplies and reinforcement you like while your conventional forces push in from the front lines. It is an ambitious idea, but I would expect a submarine with a capacity of three would be more plausible than an aeroplane with a capacity of 2, and far less likely to be shot down as a big, slow target that is dancing around up in the sky where everyone can see it.

I do feel that the aeroplane is a more sensible option, but that just goes to show how embarrassed we should be for considering it...

[Azzuro]

If you're going to bring up the Musashi as well I will point out that the both of them were super-heavy battleships, unique and impractical for their time and the IJN would have been better served by three fleet carriers for that price. A more relevant example would be the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, modern battleships and battlecruisers sunk solely by air power, by single-digit numbers of hits.

(circles are easy because motors make circles...).

wat

As for the rest of your argument, I'm not sure how to continue putting it across to you except that range does matter a whole lot more than you give it credit for. Your battleship can't deter anything if it's on fire and sinking, which aircraft can accomplish from way outside the range of any naval guns. HMS Glorious was the only aircraft carrier that battleships were able to get in range of and sink, and that was due more to sheer incompetence on their part than the enemy's skill, while the list of battleships sunk by aircraft is so numerous that I'm not going to bother listing it here.

The only area I'll concede that battleships are better than carriers is in shore bombardment, but carrier-launched bombers can still perform that role to some degree.

[RAM]

(circles are easy because motors make circles...).

wat

Well, you see, pretty much all industrial motors output their energy in a circular motion. Something that rotates. Converting that energy from a rotational force into some sort of other force requires more complicated force transmission than a circular motion would. More complicated systems are, as a rule, more likely to fail. Things that are morel likely to fail require more maintenance. Carriers have to move things around a lot, which is non-rotational force. Battleships tend to twist things around a lot, which is rotational force...

We are not talking about lone ships here, and we are not talking about an enemy devoid of their own air forces. The enemy WILL field aircraft, either carriers of their own or long--ranged craft based from the not-so-distant islands that can plausibly provide cover for their fleets within the most important waters. With similar supplies of aircraft and who-knows-what hypothetical anti-air and fleet-detection contrivances will appear, aircraft depletion and stealth-failure are both very valid concerns, and either of these leaves our carriers extremely vulnerable to being hunted down and torn apart by torpedo-boat destroyers. Aircraft CAN sink ships at vast ranges, but there is no guarantee that they WILL. Fleets often survive air-raids with only minor damage and fielding air-raids takes time and incurs losses. A surface fleet is fully capable of driving through an air attack and attacking it at its source, it is just costly to do so, but can be far more costly for the target. The lack of carriers being sunk by surface ships has more to do with the difficulty of locating carriers than the issue of reaching them, which becomes less of an issue when there is parity in forces. And don't forget that if the carriers are as cheap as dirt then it may be that we do not have enough aeroplanes to go around...

 World War Two is a pretty terrible example of naval combat because very little of it was between forces of similar resources. Axis naval combat generally resolves down to a few noteworthy victories in an ocean of being eroded by overwhelming force amidst a day-to-day of stealth and desperation strategies. It is probably better to look at instances of coastal guns stalling naval forces to get an idea for what battleships can do in an even theatre.